


Citizen Erased

by Imagined



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Angst, Anxiety, Cloak of Levitation (Marvel), Curses, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, Falling In Love, Fights, Friends to Lovers, Getting to Know Each Other, Hurt/Comfort, Insecurity, Jealousy, M/M, Magic, Minor Character Death, Minor Injuries, Mutual Pining, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Outer Space, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Stephen Strange & Wong Friendship, Tony Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, but then a very particular kind of amnesia i guess, too many references to Queen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2019-10-27 13:13:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 47
Words: 177,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17767442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imagined/pseuds/Imagined
Summary: What do you do when no one in the world ever manages to remember you?Anyone who sees Tony Stark promptly forgets he ever existed after mere seconds. When everyone he has ever cared about has lost their memories of him, he goes to Stephen Strange, possibly the only one who can help him lift the curse. But a terrifying danger is coming, and saving the world isn’t an easy job to do when no one can remember who you are.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, this fic exists because of my disappointment in the book _The Sudden Appearance of Hope_ , written by the usually extraordinarily amazing Claire North. It deals with a character who, like Tony in this fic, is never remembered by anyone. It's a concept I loved, but the execution of it I... didn't. So I thought of what I'd have wanted to see, and here we are. So it's not an AU except for sharing that initial concept.
> 
> Secondly, the title I took from Muse's song with the same name, which was too perfect not to use.
> 
> Third and last: this fic is kind of an ''if Infinity War never happened''. The Avengers are sorta back together, Bruce has been dropped off by the Asgardians, and life continued on. Just so that that part's clear.
> 
> Happy reading!

A man walks on the streets. It’s scorching hot outside, and the streets are filled with scantily clad tourists and hurrying New Yorkers who give the aforementioned tourists annoyed looks. The man, however, gets stared at as well. He’s wearing a shabby sweater and dirty jeans that used to be very expensive, and his old sneakers have walked the streets of New York a bit too often, judging from the dirt and faded colours. Still, there’s no doubt the man knows the city well; he moves with an ease that only comes from knowing exactly where you are, and where you need to go. 

He isn’t stared at because of his messy, unkempt hair and the shadows under his eyes, or the clothes that used to be lavish but now belong to a garbage can. People watch and mutter, and he ignores them all, striding through the crowd with an empty look and the burden of desperate hope on his shoulders. He walks by like a ghost, like something unreal, and the contrast is unknown to even the most unfazed New Yorker. 

Still, as people pass the man, they forget about him soon enough. Not because he’s unremarkable, in the grand scheme of things; maybe they wouldn’t have remembered him anyway, but it just happens to be that they don’t even get the choice. 

The man walks on, and walks like a ghost, because he doesn’t exist in anyone’s memories.

~*~

‘’I’m here,’’ Tony Stark mutters, as he stares at the street he needs to be in. Bleecker Street, the name plate of the street reads. Tony nods at it. He’s so, so tired. 

The houses rise high, but it’s clear where Tony needs to be. Bleecker Street 177A – a fancy building, but not a lot of people are aware of what goes on behind those walls. Tony knows, obviously. What’s going on behind those walls might very well be his only hope.

He forces himself to walk to the house. The windows have a shine, if you know what to look for, but an innocent passer-by wouldn’t see anything particularly unusual. Tony presumes it was made that way: wizards, in his experience, usually don’t want other people to know they’re wizards. Some other people walk past, but it’s not very busy on the streets. Tony ignores them, and hops up to the few stairs that lead to the wooden door that will allow him entrance into Bleecker Street 177A, or that’s what he hopes.

He knocks.

For a moment, he holds his breath. Then more moments pass, and more, and a few more, and Tony knocks again. They could at least have the decency to open the door. ‘’Hey, there,’’ he shouts at it, in the hopes that someone behind it will hear him. ‘’I know that someone’s there. Hello!’’

Well, whether they’re going to open the door or not, Tony’s not going to leave. He huffs, and leans against a bit of wall next to him. It kind of pokes into his ribs, but his feet hurt from walking. If need be, he’d go to the Sanctum in one of the other cities, but that would pose another problem altogether. He’s going to sit here, and eventually someone will remember to come to the door, and –

Tony groans. No one is going to remember. He stands up straight again and keeps knocking, two full minutes. His knuckles are going a bit red, but the door opens.

Tony knows the man who is standing in the door opening, giving him an annoyed look. It’s Wong, and Tony’s worked with him a few times before, on missions. The guy’s friendly enough, in his experience, if maybe a bit distant and overly polite. 

Wong, of course, doesn’t remember Tony at all, and regards him with some distaste. ‘’Can I help you?’’ he asks coolly.

‘’I need Strange’s help,’’ Tony says, and tries not to sound too desperate. ‘’Look, there’s something wrong with me.’’

Wong raises his eyebrows. ‘’Well, that’s not something that can be helped.’’

Tony may have laughed, another day. Another time. ‘’You don’t understand. I’ve been – experiencing something that science can’t explain. Nor anything else I’ve turned to. It’s been going on for months, and the only ones I could think of to go to are you and Strange. Look, I will explain it all, but just let me see Strange.’’

Wong looks at him, trying to judge him, or something of the like. ‘’How do you know about us?’’ Wong asks eventually.

Tony sighs. ‘’Because I met you. You used to know me, too, actually. That’s actually the problem.’’

‘’How? What, exactly, is the problem here?’’

Tony looks Wong straight in the eye. ‘’No one remembers me. And at this rate, no one ever will.’’

~*~

‘’You need to fill in some forms, of course,’’ Wong explains, as he walks through the long hallways. Tony stumbles after him, feeling far too relieved that he’s been let in. ‘’We’re not savages, after all. The Sorcerer Supreme is busy, now, but I think we’ll be able to make some time for you afterwards.’’

‘’When’s that?’’ Tony asks. Wong guides him into a small room, only a desk and some shelves filling it up. The room is obviously only in use for administrative tasks, and Tony sits down as Wong gives him some paperwork.

Seems not even the Master of the Mystic Arts can escape paperwork, then.

‘’When he’s ready,’’ Wong answers easily, but not very helpfully. ‘’Just fill in everything that you can. I’ll be back soon to collect you.’’

Tony sighs. ‘’Seriously? I just told you no one remembers me. You’re going to _forget_ that I’m here, alright?’’

Wong raises his eyebrows, and sits in the seat opposite Tony. ‘’I have a very good memory, and I know the Mystic Arts. I’ll remember that you are here. Now, don’t go wandering around the place, and just wait. I’ll come to collect you.’’

Before Tony can protest, the sorcerer is gone, and Tony is left with the forms in front of him. He hopes Wong is right; he hopes the man will remember to come and get Tony. These past few weeks… they haven’t been easy on him, exactly. It’s hard to keep your life running when no one remembers your existence.

He takes a look at the forms, blinking tiredly, and takes a pen. It’s full of the ordinary stuff; his name, his address, even his blood type is asked for. Then come the more unusual questions; whether he has been in contact with magic users before, and if so, who, that kind of stuff. The moment Tony sees the question of if he’s ever been in contact with a dragon, he starts rolling his eyes, writes down a concrete ‘no’, and puts down the pen. All of this is irrelevant. He has a very real issue, and he’s been here for nearly an hour already. He’s tired, and anxious, and he hasn’t showered in a few days. He just wants to know if Stephen Strange can help him, or if he has to go somewhere else to look for answers.

Well. He’s kind of run out of options, unless he finds a way to Asgard's spaceship. Thor used to be his go-to guy for advice on the supernatural – and Tony is quickly running out of options about what else his condition could be – but then again, he hasn’t seen Thor in ages. Not since the god dropped off Bruce from their space adventure involving homicidal sisters and broken planets.

He closes his eyes and focuses on breathing evenly. 

~*~

He leaves the room after three hours with the forms in his hand.

There is no doubt in Tony’s mind that Wong has simply forgotten he’s there. No matter what the sorcerer says, Tony has become very sceptical of people’s abilities to remember him. Everyone has forgotten him, even the people he thought that never would.

He remembers Pepper’s face when –

Well. Best not think about that. Tony sighs, and starts wandering the corridors. There are some other people walking around, eyeing him strangely, but Tony doesn’t worry about them telling someone else. They’ll have forgotten they ever saw him in a matter of seconds, and he makes his way through the Sanctum.

Eventually, he walks into a library, where he can see Wong and Stephen Strange. They immediately look up at his entrance, and they forge those magic shields they’re always so fond of. Well, it’s nice to be threatening enough to force the two greatest wizards of the London Sanctum into a defensive position, but it’s not as if it’s necessary. He holds up his hands in the universal gesture of surrender. 

‘’Hi there,’’ he says with a cheerfulness he doesn’t quite feel.

‘’Who are you, trespasser?’’ Strange asks, his voice low and dangerous. 

Tony rolls his eyes at that. ‘’My name is Tony Stark. And I’m not trespassing – Wong let me in.’’ He waves the forms at them, and watches Strange and Wong exchange a glance.

‘’I didn’t,’’ Wong says, his shields still up but with a touch of uncertainty edged on his face. 

‘’Yeah, you just don’t remember,’’ Tony tells him, and sits down on the couch. ‘’You wouldn’t be the first. Look, I’m not a threat. I need help, desperately, because I have this pesky little issue that isn’t going away by itself, and science can’t help me. Believe me, I’ve tried. So I thought that turning to the wizards is my last option.’’

Stephen Strange’s eyes narrow, but he drops his shield. ‘’What do you need help with, and why did you sneak inside the Sanctum for it?’’

‘’I didn’t _sneak_ ,’’ Tony says affronted. ‘’I knocked on the door and Wong let me in. Don’t you guys have cameras or something? Okay, never mind. Wong opened the door, showed me the waiting room and these forms, and promptly forgot I ever existed. That’s my problem: people forgetting. I’ve been walking around for months, talking to people, and then they turn around and forget I’m there. It’s happened to _everyone_. It’s like I’m a ghost. Not even a ghost, because that would mean I’m dead, and even if you’re dead, people remember you. But not me. If I walked out of this room, you’d go on with what you were doing, and you wouldn’t remember me.’’

Strange looks at him. ‘’You think it’s a spell?’’ he asks, and he doesn’t question Tony’s story, at least. That’s more than anyone else has done before, and he can’t help but let out a sigh of relief.

‘’Yes,’’ he says firmly. ‘’I do think that. I’ve run countless tests on myself – I’ve filmed myself, shown it to people, but it doesn’t matter because even if I have proof, people forget within seconds anyway. I’ve been thrown out of my own home. Bodyguards have called the police, but fortunately they forgot what they were there for and I could leave without being arrested. I _don’t exist_. It’s not anything I’ve ever encountered before, and if it’s not magic, I don’t know what else it could be.’’

‘’You’re a scientist,’’ Strange realizes slowly. Tony nods, and Strange continues. ‘’I haven’t seen anything like it before, and I don’t know of any spell that could do this to you. But I can test you, and perhaps find a solution to your problem.’’

A weight that Tony hadn’t realized was on his chest falls of. His final option, and there may be answers here. Tony lets out a deep breath. ‘’I owe you,’’ he says. ‘’But you realize it has to be now. You’ll have forgotten all about this if we don’t.’’

Strange smiles wryly. ‘’Yes, well, I wouldn’t want Wong to throw you out if you’re truly a victim here. Just sit down before me and close your eyes, and I will check.’’

Tony sits down, but he doesn’t close his eyes. Strange doesn’t say anything about it, but sends him a knowing smile as he starts slowly moving his hands, in an educated and purposeful rhythm. Orange sparks appear in the air before Tony, and he can’t help but watch on in fascination, even if he’s seen Strange do it far more quickly and far more lethally in battles before. Still, this is different. It’s more practiced and less hurried: there is a deep sense of knowledge to Strange’s movements, and his light eyes are dark and concentrated.

There is the feeling of something tingling through his veins, and Tony does close his eyes now to concentrate on it. It’s a light burning, not painful but also not entirely pleasant. It feels unlike anything he has ever felt, and Tony tries to breathe through it as steadily as he can manage. White spots are swimming in front of his vision, even with his eyes closed, and the disagreeable feeling silently grows inside until he grimaces.

It all falls away suddenly, and Tony realizes he’s master of his own body again. His eyes fly open to meet Strange’s serious ones. ‘’Well?’’ he breathes, ignoring the faint pricks of discomfort still lingering. 

Strange bites his lip before answering, looking to Wong. ‘’I haven’t seen anything like it before,’’ he answers. ‘’There is a spell, I can tell you that. It does not contain any information on who cast it, or for what reason – the spell doesn’t even make clear what exactly it does. It radiates outwards, to affect the people who see you, instead of just you. It’s a curious thing, and it’s locked firmly inside of you. I’m not sure I can get it out, not without having grave consequences.’’

‘’I don’t care about the consequences,’’ Tony says confidently. ‘’I want my life back. If you even have an inkling of what to do, then you have to do it.’’

‘’It’s not that easy,’’ Wong answers. ‘’If Stephen removes it, there is no guarantee it won’t come back. Besides, removing a spell that is this deeply ingrained into you could kill you. Removing a spell cast by another sorcerer has countless dangers, especially if one is unfamiliar with the spell.’’

‘’Besides,’’ Strange adds, ‘’this spell affects the people outside of you. If it mutates or protects itself, we do not know what it would do to those around you. It’s a harmful spell.’’

Tony didn’t realize his hopes were soaring quite this high until he feels them fall to the bottom again. ‘’So you can’t help me?’’ he responds. 

Strange looks at him again, and he didn't know how intense that gaze could be. Tony shuffles where he’s sitting. ‘’I think we can,’’ Strange says slowly, ‘’but not directly. We have our own matters to look into, but I can promise you that we can search for an answer to your dilemma. In the meanwhile, you are free to stay here. The Sanctum is always a haven to those who need it.’’

He sounds like he’s repeating someone else, but Tony doesn’t question him on it. ‘’That’s all nice and well, but you’ll have forgotten all about me within seconds,’’ he reminds them. ‘’I’ll still be thrown on the streets because you don’t remember who I am.’’

Strange stands up, and Tony follows his examples. The Sorcerer Supreme takes the forms in Tony’s handwriting, and looks at them for a few seconds. ‘’You said that you could be filmed, right?’’ he asks. At Tony’s nod, he frowns thoughtfully. ‘’I think we should test the boundaries of this spell.’’

With that, he starts writing.

~*~

Tony stays in the Sanctum for two more days. It’s not much, but he has his own room and gets food and does not get thrown out. His room is amongst all sorcerers, and they often forget he’s there. On the room to his door there’s a short note explaining his situation, and though people often forget anyway, he can point to it and not get thrown out. It’s been Wong he has pointed it out to at least three times, and each time the sorcerer responds with a glare as if he’s doubting Tony’s story. At least Stephen Strange has given Tony another note with an explanation of his situation he can show to anyone asking questions in the Sanctum. Everyone takes the Sorcerer Supreme at his word.

So it’s not much, but it’s better than nothing.

Strange doesn’t remember him either – or well, not in the sense of actual memory. But Tony goes to his personal working room every two hours, as per Strange’s request, and he can see the various reminders of what he’s supposed to be working on. There’s dozens of scribbles left all over the room. When he comes in, Strange always smiles wistfully.

‘’Tony,’’ he says, after his eyes flick to a certain piece of paper with Tony’s name and situation on it. ‘’Are you settling in the Sanctum?’’

Tony shrugs. Strange always asks, and Tony can sense that he’s uncertain what to say. For Strange, this is their first meeting once again, and Tony is only a guy he’s written a few notes on to remember him. Tony isn’t a real person, but a problem, until he gets there and Strange has to meet him all over again.

‘’It’s fine,’’ he says. People always forget to bring him his meals, but Tony has acquired the habit of going down to the kitchen with Stephen’s note on his situation and they’ll kindly give him food, if there’s any left. If there isn’t any left, they’ll usually go to the kitchen to make some, but always end up forgetting what it’s for and throwing it out. It’s a rhythm he’s gotten used to.

Strange eyes him sceptically, but doesn’t inquire any further. ‘’I’ve been working on the problem,’’ Strange tells him instead. ‘’Wong is in the library researching similar spells, but your case is extremely rare.’’

‘’Or people have simply forgotten about cases like me,’’ Tony responds dryly. Strange smiles at him, even though he’s the one who voiced that option a few meetings earlier. Not that he remembers, anyway. Tony feels strangely fatigued.

‘’It’s a possibility,’’ Strange allows. ‘’Still, yours is not the only spell to affect people outside of the one cursed. We’ve found an option in which we can put a spell on ourselves so that Wong and I can at least remember you.’’

Tony’s heart skips a beat. ‘’That’s an option?’’ he asks.

Strange nods. ‘’A very viable one, in fact. Wong is researching the safest method to do it, but I’m sure we’ll be able to perform it either tomorrow or the day after. We will help you, Tony. It’s our duty.’’

‘’Is it possible to perform that spell on other people, too?’’ Tony asks, thinking of Pepper. Rhodey, Peter, the Avengers. He just needs a few of them to remember. He needs them to know him again.

Strange sighs, and puts a hand on his shoulder. It’s unlike him, or at least, in as far as Tony knows him. ‘’I’m sorry,’’ Strange says. ‘’It’s a very complicated spell, and one that needs to be self-inflicted. We can’t spell anyone but ourselves, and not even everyone in this Sanctum will be able to. But Wong and I will work on it, I can promise you that, and we’ll get you your life back.’’

Tony doesn’t say anything. It’s better than nothing, but he is tired of getting his hopes crushed. Still, he reminds himself that this is more than he had just a few days earlier. He’s getting somewhere, thanks to the sorcerers. 

‘’So, tomorrow or the day after?’’ he asks, trying to forget about everyone in his life.

Stephen nods. ‘’It would be today, but your spell slows us down,’’ the sorcerer tells him with a wry smile. ‘’I keep forgetting, and then seeing the notes, and we have to get into it all over again. But don’t worry: the notes work.’’

‘’Even though you keep forgetting the notes exist,’’ Tony remarks.

‘’It’s a troublesome thing, this spell of yours. We don’t merely forget you, we forget anything that has to do with you. No wonder you had so much trouble before. Don’t worry: I’m the Sorcerer Supreme, and Wong has been here long before I. We’ll spell ourselves to remember you soon enough, and then we can truly help you find the solution.’’

Tony nods and then leaves. It’s still more difficult than he’d hoped. Still, some problems are being solved. Two people will remember him in only a few days, and that’s two more people than he has had for a long time now. He isn’t on the streets anymore, and he gets a decent amount of food and rest. 

Things are looking up, and Tony hopes he’s not wrong to let his hopes rise again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone who's interested enough to follow the rest of the fic - rest assured, it's going to be finished. Currently, I've finished 13 chapters of the 47 I have planned, which amounts to about 43k. The plot has been worked out fully and I'm determined to finish it. Updates will be every Wednesday.
> 
> Also, shoutout to Mara, without whom this fic would've been little more than a persistently nagging idea. Thanks for letting me rant at you and encouraging me to keep writing.
> 
> Hopefully see you next week!


	2. Chapter 2

‘’A spell leaves traces,’’ Stephen explains, walking around the table Tony’s lying on, his eyes closed. It is odd, to see a man he’s certain he must have met countless times now: still, Tony is unfamiliar to him, a stranger who looks at him like he knows him. It’s an unsettling feeling, but Stephen can’t imagine how Tony must be feeling, so he pushes past it. ‘’I can’t undo these traces, I can merely follow them. In you, they are faint, so that I can barely see them.’’

‘’And you need these traces for what?’’ Tony murmurs, eyes still closed. Wong is on the other side, watching Stephen closely. 

Stephen stops by Tony’s right hand, and takes it. Tony doesn’t respond to the unexpected movement, and Stephen sends a small tinge of magic into it. The spell inside Tony responds, but barely. ‘’I need it to know what the spell is,’’ Stephen explains. ‘’And to know how to counteract it. I can sense the presence of a trace, but I can’t identify it beyond knowing it’s there, which makes it harder. Wong and I have found the way to counteract your spell, but it will not help us lift your curse.’’

Tony nods slowly. Wong takes over. ‘’The spell trace can help us find who cast your spell, but because it is so faint, we cannot tell yet. We will try to find a solution to your curse, but in many cases, only the person who cast a spell can release you from it. There are other paths, but this is the quickest one and the safest one, too.’’

‘’Now, you just need to concentrate,’’ Stephen says, and he sees Tony’s nose twitch. He releases Tony’s hand, and the impression of his curse falls away from his mind. Stephen forms a cup just over Tony’s heart, feeling the energy pouring out of the spell, affecting everyone in its vicinity. He pulls, and _pulls_ , and works the energy into something different in his own mind. He can sense Wong doing the same thing beside him.

Tony hisses in pain on the table, but Stephen can’t help him with that, as he keeps pulling. The threads of magic float away, and Stephen forms them into a spell on their own, one of his own making, and carefully arranging it to fit in his own astral form. It’s truly a gigantic amount of energy that is emitting from Tony: by his own words, Tony was a very well-known celebrity. Stephen guesses it makes sense – the spell has to make everyone who has ever heard of Tony forget him, every single moment of the day. It’s a huge enterprise, and he wonders at the spell once again, even as he tries to bind the energy in as far as he can.

For one moment, he feels a blinding pain, and then it’s gone.

He can see Wong recovering as well, and Tony lies on the table, breathing heavily, as the past trickles back to him. Suddenly, the man before him is far more familiar, but Stephen does not focus on the returning memories. ‘’Tony?’’ he asks, taking the man’s wrist. He is still a doctor, always a doctor, and he never means to hurt anyone under his care. Fact is, some of the spells needed to help Tony will also hurt him. That’s the way this works, sometimes.

Tony’s heartbeat is steady, and Stephen can breathe more easily after noting that. He has just lost consciousness. ‘’I’ll bring him to his room,’’ he says. Wong nods once.

‘’I will start searching for similar spells as the one cast upon him.’’

Stephen sees him go before flicking with his fingers, allowing Tony to drift along with him. No one in the Sanctum even looks up to see him striding along its halls, a flying man unconscious behind him. 

~*~

He sits beside Tony Stark for a while, even as he starts making sense of the memories that are crashing into him like waves.

This spell – it can more aptly be called a curse, and Stephen wonders at the intensity of it. Of course he remembers Tony, and even now it feels odd to _not_ know the man who is currently resting in a bed in the New York Sanctum. 

He shakes his head. Tony Stark shifts in his sleep, and Stephen looks at him. He hasn’t heard of the man in a few months at least, and he wonders how much of the period is natural, and how much of it was the curse running its course. He hasn’t truly been in contact with Stark, before this, but they’d known each other from passing battles and conflicts, even if they’d never talked in person.

He really must have been out of options, to come to Stephen. For a moment, he tries imagining what it would be like to slowly lose yourself among the people you care about most; he thinks of Wong forgetting who he is, all the wizards in the Sanctum forgetting him. Leading a life without being remembered is nigh impossible: he thinks Tony has learnt it all too well. 

It’s a lonely, unbearable existence, and Stephen feels for the man sleeping in the bed, shadows still under his eyes, ribs visible beneath his dirty clothes, and vouches to help. Tony Stark has saved the world enough times for Stephen to admire his strength and character, even if he hadn’t been sure what to make of the charming billionaire before. 

Not that it matters. Stephen will assist everyone who comes to the Sanctum for help, and he will not turn away Stark, no matter how hard it will be to break his spell. 

~*~

Stephen leaves before Tony wakes up, and goes to check on the continued safety of the Sanctum. It’s a daily routine, now; he is the master of the New York Sanctum, and the Sorcerer Supreme besides, and it is a pressure he feels all too keenly.

He remembers the Ancient One, and he misses his old teacher for a few moments with a fiery regret. He is replacing someone who had centuries of experience with magic, with all it entailed. Stephen has been here only for a few years, shorter than many of the wizards that are now under his care. At moments, it’s enough to make him buckle under the weight of the responsibility that is on his shoulders, but it always passes.

It always must, because he is the Sorcerer Supreme, and it is his job to keep track of all threats.

He sits down with a deep sigh, running a hand over his face. It has been too long since he slept; and forming a spell to counteract Stark’s curse had taken more energy than he had expected. He is still filled with questions, though, and the answers must be somewhere in the books. He has read a decent amount of them, but there are so many books that Stephen despairs ever reading them in his lifetime. He trains new wizards, he places protective spells against minor coming threats, he watches out for potential dangers. He barely has any time for learning about all the possible spells, let alone the extremely rare ones. 

Wong drops down beside him. ‘’Stark woke up. I told him to come to us when he was ready,’’ he says without further ado.

‘’That’s fine. Did you find out something we could use to find who cast the spell with such a faint trace?’’

Wong shrugs, a thoughtful look on his face. ‘’I’m not sure it can be done. It is an odd spell, Stephen, but masterfully crafted.’’

Stephen nods. ‘’To radiate so much energy and yet have such a unclear trace.’’

‘’Stark is a celebrity all over the world. The spell affects everyone who has ever heard of him; of course it takes a lot of energy. I do not see what the point of this endeavour would be – there are easier ways to get rid of someone.’’

There must be a point – there always is, and Stephen intends to find out. ‘’We should talk to Tony about it. The possible reason for the spell escapes me for now, but perhaps killing him wasn’t even the perpetrator’s goal. They need to gain something from the world forgetting Tony and everything to do with him. Between you and me, we should be able to find some information on whatever spell it is. If we can figure out what the spell was meant to achieve, then we could figure out who enchanted him.’’

‘’To be fair, it wouldn’t be the first time someone wanted to wipe out my existence,’’ Tony says and Stephen looks up as he walks in. He looks better-rested, and he smiles wryly at them before he sits down. ‘’I guess it’s easier to do it like this than if I’m dead. I imagine I would still get a lot of attention if I were dead. Or maybe they dislike killing. Despite the fact that the possibility of me ending up dead is uncomfortably high, with this kind of spell.’’

Stephen sits up a bit straighter in his chair. ‘’It won’t come to that,’’ he promises. ‘’If this sorcerer wanted you dead, they could have gone for a more straightforward way, so let’s assume that is not the goal of this entire enterprise. This spell is too specific for something like that, too _smart_. The spell makes it almost impossible to trace it back to someone, but we will work on that anyway.’’

‘’So we need to find the person who cast the spell to undo it?’’ Tony asks. ‘’Or risk a very dangerous removal from one of you that could mean catastrophe for everyone around me?’’

The sorcerer shrugs. ‘’Or find a spell that can counter and dissolve your curse, but it remains to be seen if we can find one. Those are your only three viable options. The second one you mentioned involves destroying the energy the spell creates, and that is never a choice I’m comfortable with. There are very few beings in the universe that can simply _destroy_ energy, and none of them are safe to be around. Or easy to find, for that matter. There are none on Earth who can, as far as I am aware.’’

‘’If there is a way, we will find one,’’ Wong supplies. 

Tony huffs. ‘’I believe you,’’ he says, and Stephen hopes he means that. ‘’I’d just hoped… I don’t know.’’

‘’Magic is rarely easy.’’ He tries to go for a comforting smile, but Tony just looks away. Something like disappointment crosses the billionaire’s face, but it’s gone before he can be sure he saw it correctly. He ignores it anyway; he knows Tony wanted more when he came in, but magic is a fickle business with many rules and even more exceptions. 

One of Stephen’s younger wards comes in – a thin girl in her twenties, who shows promising skills in defensive spells but seems to be more interested in studying potions. 

‘’Yes, Lydia?’’ he says, addressing her.

‘’Master Strange,’’ she says, bowing quickly, and she gazes with some confusion at Tony. ‘’Master Haman asks for your assistance in a matter, if you’re not too busy.’’

Stephen had been too busy, the past few days. He winces at the reminder, but can’t help shoot a look at Tony. He wants to help, but there is little he can do but pour over books.

‘’I have some matters to attend to,’’ he tells the man, ‘’but I promise you that we will continue looking, and that you will have a place here. I will try to find some others who can counteract your spell, so you will always have a few Masters to go to in the Sanctum.’’

‘’Yeah, thanks,’’ Tony says, and Stephen knows he means it this time.

He leaves with a quick nod.

~*~

It’s an older man who runs the kitchen. His name is Simeon, and he’s originally from Bulgaria. He speaks English perfectly, except when he tells a joke, when his accent becomes heavier. He is a man who is slightly fatter around the middle than is probably healthy, but he runs the kitchen with a terrifying efficiency and never looks at Tony like he’s unwelcome.

‘’I’m Simeon,’’ the man tells him when Tony enters the kitchen. He wears the same kind smile he wore the last four times he introduced himself. ‘’Are you a new apprentice? What can I help you with? Everyone left the dining room an hour ago, and we only deliver food to the rooms of those who ask it beforehand. ’’

‘’Hi,’’ Tony says, and hands him Strange’s note. The note really comes in handy; it explains Tony’s situation in two short sentences that don’t really do justice to everything that has happened. It saves him from explaining everything time and time again, and that’s something he can appreciate. Introducing yourself and explaining that no one remembers you gets very tiring after the first three times.

Simeon’s eyes skim over the note before he hands it back. ‘’That’s rough,’’ he says. ‘’I assume you’ve met me, already?’’

‘’This is the fifth time,’’ Tony tells him with a wry smile. ‘’People keep forgetting to bring me food. Is it okay if I go into the kitchen to make some for myself?’’

Simeon’s head tilts. ‘’I can make some for you,’’ he offers.

‘’You’ll forget what you were doing and throw it away.’’

His eyes sharpen. ‘’What if you came into the kitchen with me and I’d make you something? If we keep talking, I wouldn’t forget, right?’’

That could actually work. People only start forgetting when Tony’s out of their mind for a few seconds. He agrees with a shrug. ‘’Right.’’

Simeon smiles, and goes into the kitchen. Tony follows. It’s probably for the best anyway – he’s tried to make himself food a few times, but once he’d been thrown out of the kitchen and the other time he’d burnt it. He’s not the greatest cook, definitely. At least this time he will have something edible. Simeon keeps up a steady commentary all the way through cooking it, easily diverting the attention away from Tony’s curse.

He appreciates it more than he can show.

‘’Here you go,’’ Simeon tells him with a kind smile, handing him a plate with warm, steaming rice with vegetables that makes Tony only more aware of his own hunger. They walk into the dining room, continuing sharing stories.

‘’I should tell you about the time I tried to make an omelette,’’ Tony says, as he sits down on the table.

Simeon laughs. ‘’It wasn’t a success, I take it? Wait, I forgot to get the sauce. Let me get it from the kitchen.’’

He’s gone before Tony can even remember to stop him. For a moment, he doesn’t think about it, as he happily digs into his hot meal. The realization only dawns on him when Simeon returns, frowning when he sees Tony.

‘’Who are you?’’ he demands, and Tony’s spirit falls.

Wordlessly, he hands Simeon the note, and he reads it carefully before he frowns. ‘’I’m sorry,’’ he says. ‘’So we’ve already met?’’ His words echo the ones from not even an hour ago. Tony forces himself to smile again as he nods.

‘’Sixth time,’’ he answers.

~*~

Stephen’s eyes carefully track the whereabouts of the dots on the globe that tell him how strong the Sanctums still stand and shield the world, writing down everything he notes and quickly reading over his old comments. Nothing has changed, but he has to be aware of even the subtlest hints of danger. 

He is just finishing up when Wong enters. He shakes himself out of his concentration to meet his friend. ‘’Everything in order?’’ Wong asks. Stephen knows it’s more out of habit than actual worry. The Sanctums have been safe under Stephen’s care, and there has been nothing they can’t deal with. Besides, if there was, he would have alerted Wong long ago.

‘’Nothing noticeable,’’ Stephen says easily. ‘’No extraordinary spikes in either Sanctum-ruled areas or anywhere else.’’

It doesn’t mean everything, of course – there are many dangers that can pass them by, lots of spells that don’t necessarily endanger the Sanctums or their shield and that still can do harm. Still, it’s more of a safeguard than they’d have otherwise. ‘’I’ve been searching for spells to undo Stark’s,’’ Wong tells him. ‘’I only managed an hour before other matters came to my attention. He may be here for longer than any of us want, Stephen.’’

‘’He is a refugee,’’ Stephen responds. ‘’It’s our duty to help him and provide him with shelter.’’

Wong sighs. ‘’That’s not what I mean,’’ he says. ‘’We did not know who or what he was, before. Now we remember him; and we both know that Tony Stark is a dangerous man, with a mind to be trifled with. We can’t simply put him away and expect him to be content with it, especially not if we have to track whoever cursed him.’’

‘’What do you suggest? We’re a safe haven, not a kindergarten. We do not have the resources to amuse him; we don’t have to. We are here to help him.’’

Wong glances at him, and Stephen sighs. He knows Tony Stark well enough to know that the other man will want to get involved – but it’s hardly possible. They have a library, and there’s the gardens, but there is hardly something like a lab. Even if there was, he’s certain Stark is used to more exclusive gear than they can be expected to have.

‘’We don’t have the resources,’’ Wong says, ‘’but perhaps he does.’’

Stephen nods thoughtfully. He’s not sure what Tony’s financial situation is: they never discussed it. He assumed Tony has no money, because he’d seemed like he’d slept on the street when he came in. On the other hand, he can only imagine how difficult it would be to find a place to sleep when people will forget you’re there in the first place, even with all the money in the world. 

‘’I will discuss it with him,’’ Stephen allows. ‘’But not now: we may yet find the answer sooner than expected, and I don’t want to give him false hope for things that might not happen. If it turns out he becomes a danger to himself, left alone, we will intervene.’’

Wong looks at him considerately. Stephen doesn’t interrupt, but just eyes his friend warily. Nothing good ever comes out of Wong’s more thoughtful insights.

‘’You should sleep,’’ he says.

Nothing good. Stephen rolls his eyes.

~*~

Tony is just on the way to his room when he runs into Stephen Strange. ‘’Hi,’’ he says, and it feels strangely weird to have someone actually know who he is for the first time in months. He hadn’t realized quite how lonely he was before. 

Strange smiles at him, peculiarly wistfully. ‘’It’s good to see you,’’ the sorcerer says. ‘’Are you doing alright in the Sanctum? Has everyone been welcoming to you?’’

‘’Oh, yeah, it’s fine,’’ Tony says. ‘’I mean, I’d love for everyone to stop introducing themselves to me when I already know them, but that’s what I’m here for anyway. You haven’t made any headway on that, have you?’’

The gentle smile turns into something more twisted, and he sees Strange look back to where he came from before his eyes are on Tony’s again. ‘’Not so far, but I have not had much time to pour over manuscripts today. There are many matters to deal with in the Sanctum, and a great number of them fall to me.’’

‘’I understand,’’ Tony says, waving it off. He thinks he does a pretty good job of hiding the stab of disappointment he feels, but he knows Strange is doing the best he can. It’s not his fault – he has never been close to the Sorcerer Supreme, or in fact with anyone who uses magic, but he knows that the man has a ton of responsibilities he can’t even imagine. 

‘’Right,’’ Strange says. ‘’Well, I’ll see you tomorrow. I’m an early riser, but perhaps you would like to eat breakfast together? Wong doesn’t wake until he has snoozed at least eleven times.’’

Tony snorts out a laugh. ‘’I’d never have guessed,’’ he confesses. ‘’I’m an early riser myself. Not much of a sleeper at all, actually.’’ And he’d love to actually have company, for a change. There are worse individuals to be having breakfast with than Stephen Strange.

‘’Too little time in the day,’’ Strange agrees. ‘’I will see you tomorrow, Tony.’’

Tony nods. Perhaps tomorrow will bring more answers.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm baffled by the fact that this is a 3k chapter, and when I re-read it and edited it, all I thought was ''this is such a short chapter''. all the ones I've been writing lately have been around 4k. hope you guys still like this!

The day after does not bring more answers. Nor does the rest of the week, and Tony gets increasingly agitated. A few Masters in the Sanctum have followed Strange’s lead and spelled themselves to remember Tony. Each time, the spell got a little easier. Tony didn’t even faint the last time, even though he still experiences pain.

Well, at least there’s now five Masters in total who remember him. Five! Tony starts feeling more like a real person and less like a ghost with the growing number of people who actually have memories he stars in. Still, if he’d had to choose five people, he’d know who he would have wanted to know him. His chest aches with the memory of Pepper – a memory only he has, now.

He has spent some days exploring the Sanctum, armed with the explanatory note from Strange to defend his position in the library, the kitchen, the gardens. He upgrades whatever machinery he gets his hands on, and it caused Strange to glance at him with a look of wonder and slight suspicion at the start. Still, Tony is only trying to amuse himself. He doesn’t expect anyone in the Sanctum to entertain him, but Tony has never been someone to sit still and wait.

Which is the reason he’s sitting in the library, trying to read books in all sorts of languages he doesn’t know. At some point, about seven books in, he doesn’t even know _what_ language he isn’t understanding anymore. The few books that are in English are no help either: Tony has never had problems with studying, but the complicated mix of scientific fact and voodoo-like enchantments always manages to make his head spin. It doesn’t make sense to him, not like the comforts of familiar numbers and calculations. Tony knows _numbers_ ; not the Ritual of Rita the Red or whoever has thought up the last whimsical enchantment for _catching bees_ , of all things.

Chagrined, he closes the eighth book, resting his head on the dusty paper. 

‘’Don’t let Wong see that,’’ a familiar voice tells him with some humour. Tony looks up to see Strange striding in. ‘’He gets surprisingly protective over his books.’’

‘’Can you even call them books?’’ Tony complains. ‘’I can’t find _anything_. I don’t even understand any of it; how does all of this work? You all pretend magic is so logical, but nothing in here makes sense. I’m not sure how high Rita the Red was when writing out the ever-so-rational enchantment on whatever animal she was mooning over at the moment, but I think if I can get some of what she was having, I’d be having a much easier time understanding all of this.’’

Stephen wears a faintly amused smile. ‘’Rita the Red?’’ he echoes, and maybe Tony doesn’t remember how the sorceress was _actually_ named, but that’s not the point he’s trying to make. ‘’Tony, many people come to the Sanctum for help. Most of them, we teach to help themselves. They come in for revenge, for healing, for power. Our job is to teach them to help themselves, to understand a little more of the world. Most of them learn enough to be better and we send them on their way. Some of them stay here, and devote their life to the Mystic Arts.’’

‘’But you’re not teaching me?’’ Tony demands.

‘’You don’t want to learn,’’ Stephen corrects him. ‘’Enough people come here to search for answers, just like you. But unlike most people, you’ve already _seen_ magic and what it can do. You are not fazed by it; and I don’t think it’s a life for you, either way. You are Iron Man, and that’s your fate, and your burden. Magic isn’t the path for you, so we’ll try to solve it for you.’’

Tony stills for a moment. It’s been months since someone has remembered he’s Iron Man. He doesn’t even have his suit with him, anymore. He couldn’t bring it from his lab in the Avengers Compound where he’d left it, because he ran away after… well. Only FRIDAY still remembers he exists; it was hard, to leave her behind, but he didn’t have much of a choice. Even FRIDAY couldn’t keep him safe in a Tower full of people that don’t know him, even if she hadn’t been powered down by Pepper. He couldn’t manage to get her running again before leaving, and now he can’t reach her. He didn’t get anything done, in the end.

He misses FRIDAY, and his suit. He misses Pepper even more.

‘’Right,’’ he says, eventually, remembering he was talking to Strange. ‘’But still – even if it’s not meant for me, I can help you look, right? Maybe in books that make sense.’’

Stephen rolls his eyes at him, and pats him on the shoulder as he walks past him, and takes some books from the shelves. Wordlessly, he lays down four of them before Tony. ‘’When I started learning the Mystic Arts,’’ Strange begins, ‘’I read these books to increase my understanding. I didn’t know what I was doing at first, either. I came here to heal myself and in turn started to see a bigger picture. You already see the bigger picture, Tony.’’

Tony thinks of the Battle of New York, of flying through a pitch-black hole in the sky, of all the things he’s seen afterwards. He does see the bigger picture, but he doesn’t see his role in it. Not anymore; he can’t have a role while he is like this. ‘’I want to help,’’ he says. ‘’I should be able to help.’’

‘’Maybe you can,’’ Strange allows, ‘’but it’ll be in another way. Still, you’re free to read these. The library is open to you, and you can understand more. I’m not one for faulting another only because he wants to save himself. It’s how I wound up here, too.’’

Tony is silent for a moment. ‘’Thanks, Strange.’’

Strange smiles. ‘’You know, I’ve been thinking. It’s been two months since everyone started to forget about you, you said. For months you’ve been searching for an answer by yourself, and I understand why you would start there. But you knew we existed; you knew where we were; you know we could be trusted. Why didn’t you come after two _weeks_?’’

Tony would have expected that question sooner. Strange is an intelligent man, by anyone’s standards, and Tony is under no illusions about that. A leading neurosurgeon, and now the Sorcerer Supreme? He _had_ thought of Strange in under two weeks, that’s a fact. Still, it doesn’t necessarily mean he wants to talk about it – but Strange is here, helping him, asking him a natural question. He hasn’t been able to talk with anyone, not for months now, and Strange deserves some honesty from him.

‘’I wanted to solve it on my own, from the Tower and Avengers Compound,’’ he confesses. ‘’It took me a long time; Bruce helped me along for a while, but he forgot, too. Nothing ever helped – but only actual people forget me. My AI was the only one to remember me, in the end. I don’t think I was ready to give that up, because to leave the Tower felt like actually _giving up_. I’ve never encountered a problem I can’t fix, but this – well, it took me some time to realize the necessity of leaving. For a way to actually fix the problem, and also so I wouldn’t fall apart with all the people around me that I knew, but that didn’t know me.’’

Strange nods. ‘’And yet you lived on the streets for a while.’’

He has to look away, as he shifts in his seat. There’s a clock ticking in the quiet of the library, and it annoys him more than it should. ‘’Only for two days, and only because I kept being thrown out of any room I rented. It may sound crazy, but for a while I wasn’t sure I should just take the curse for what it is and disappear. It’s not – it’s not anything like you expect, being thrown out of your own life. I should’ve seen it coming, you know? This thing didn’t happen from one day to another, but I ignored the signs until I couldn’t anymore. I mean, who the heck would believe it?’’

‘’No one,’’ the sorcerer says, and there’s a thoughtful look on his face. ‘’You must know that you couldn’t have seen it coming. It’s a vile curse, and one whose likeness I’ve never seen before.’’

‘’Yeah,’’ Tony sighs. Rationally, he knows all of that. Still, it feels like he should have known. 

‘’Something happened after you were forgotten, didn’t it?’’ Strange says softly. ‘’Something that drove you out on the streets.’’

Tony shrugs, and thinks back to that day.

‘’When people forget you,’’ he begins slowly, ‘’they rearrange their lives. Suddenly, you don’t fit in there anymore. I wanted to think there was a part of the lives of the ones I cared about, that they’d somehow know that something was missing, but – well, turns out they didn’t. I love Pepper, I love her with all I am. I had this ring, you know? I had plans. But slowly, she forgot. It started out with little things – forgetting I asked her to do something, forgetting I was standing in the room. I thought she was busy – I don’t know what I thought. I thought it there was something wrong with everyone around me, not me. And she –‘’

He stops, and shrugs, like it doesn’t break his heart to think about it. ‘’None of it is your fault,’’ Strange says. ‘’None of it. We will break your curse, and you will return to her.’’

‘’I don’t know,’’ Tony says bitterly. ‘’You can’t turn back time, anyway. Even if I manage to go back, it won’t be the same. None of it will be the same. She’s moved on, and I pitied myself out on the streets before I came here. She wouldn’t want me to give up, I think. She’d slap me for even thinking it, after everything. So here I am.’’

Strange smiles, kind and wistfully. ‘’Sounds like a hell of a woman,’’ he says.

‘’She is,’’ Tony says, and longs with all his heart.

Strange says something and leaves, but Tony isn’t paying attention anymore. He closes his eyes, and thinks of Pepper watching him like a stranger. He thinks of Rhodey, forgetting his name as he calls out for him, looking confused for a moment. He remembers Peter, forgetting his appointment with Tony when he never had before.

He takes a deep breath, and buries his head in his arms.

~*~

Stephen spends days searching, Wong by his side. When he has to focus on his other tasks, other Masters take over. They search in the old books and the new ones; they search for traces and for hidden mystic presences, and they all come up with the same thing: nothing.

‘’There may be a chance we’re not doing this the right way,’’ Wong tells him.

Stephen quells the urge to throw down his books and reply with a sarcastic remark. Wong deserves better than Stephen’s ire. ‘’Even stopping Dormammu was simpler than this,’’ he says bitterly, and tries not to think back on the slumped figure of Tony Stark in the library. He knows what it’s like, loving someone and leaving their life. There was a time, and it seems ages ago now, that he loved Christine – but they’d left each other, too wrapped up in their own lives. She didn’t fit in his, and Stephen – well, he fit a bit better in hers. But it was mismatched, like he was holding onto the edges of something with all his might. Like he changed, and something that was once so natural slipped away from his sight.

He knows it all too well, but he’s just not so certain he’s the person to help.

Wong regards him. ‘’You pity him,’’ he says.

‘’I feel for him,’’ Stephen answers without hesitation. ‘’He is here willingly, but he’s a prisoner. We are the only ones who remember him, and we’re not exactly who he wants, are we?’’

Wong lets out a sharp laugh. ‘’I doubt Stark is ever a prisoner anywhere,’’ he replies. ‘’If he wants to leave, he will. But, Stephen, we are not the only masters of the Mystic Arts. And we may be needed here, without our attention diverted.’’

That stops Stephen in his tracks. He turns to Wong sharply, his faithful cloak swirling behind him. ‘’What do you mean?’’ he asks.

Wong sighs. ‘’I have news from Kamar Taj,’’ he says simply. ‘’There have been – incidents. A few people have gone missing.’’

‘’Masters?’’ he asks, but Wong shakes his head.

‘’A few, but mainly apprentices. The same complaint comes from the London Sanctum. Master Wright has told me that they have simply vanished, gone with the wind. And when I think about it, you must admit –‘’

‘’That more people have also left our Sanctum in recent months,’’ Stephen says, frowning. ‘’It’s true, but they clearly haven’t been forced from the Sanctum. They left willingly – it’s not the first time such a thing happened. We aren’t a prison, we are a haven, and everyone is free to leave.’’

Wong nods. ‘’That is why I thought nothing of it. Only three sorcerers have left our care so suddenly, but Stephen, _something_ is going on. I do not like the thought of it.’’

Even more issues – exactly what Stephen was waiting for. He closes his eyes and sighs, trying to focus for a second. Then he stands up straighter and looks at Wong. ‘’We can’t deal with this and Tony’s problem at the same time,’’ he says tiredly, ‘’especially not now we’re not any closer to finding answers. Has Master Minoru reported the same problems?’’

‘’Master Minoru reports that no one has left her Sanctum.’’

Stephen thinks about it for a moment. ‘’Perhaps it is time to ask Minoru for some help with Tony’s curse,’’ he says. He does not mean to hand over Tony’s problem; he said he’d help, and he still means to. But he can’t focus on so many things at once. ‘’Minoru is an excellent Master, and she has more experience in dealing with curses than I do. It will give us more time to deal with other issues. We can confer with Master Wright after seeing Minoru.’’

He is not very well acquainted with the Masters of the other Sanctums; he has seen Master Tina Minoru only two times, in her Hong Kong Sanctum. She helped him briefly to organize his Sanctum after Dormammu, when he and Wong were in over their heads with all the issues that needed to be sorted out. She is a calm and capable Master; Stephen knows the Hong Kong Sanctum couldn’t have a better Master. He has never met the Master of the London Sanctum at all: Alexander Wright was chosen even after Stephen, after the untimely death of Master Sol Rama. 

Wong nods. ‘’The Hong Kong Sanctum contains a great many manuscripts we do not have. Perhaps she is better suited to help Stark.’’

~*~

Tony is having a relatively good day. He had lunch with one of the Masters that remember him – an impressive woman with a first name Tony can’t pronounce but the extraordinarily normal surname Brown, and who looks like she’s thirty but is in fact somewhere at the end of her forties – and he had slept without nightmares, for a change. He hasn’t seen much of Strange or Wong for a few days, but Strange has brought him fresh clothes and a laptop and a charger for his phone that died a long time ago. Not that he has anyone to call. He’s settling in, slowly but surely, though he’s eager to get his hands on more information.

He tries not to be bothered by the fact that he hasn’t heard anything about his curse, yet. It’s not working as well as he wants to.

He’s not sure whether he’s disappointed or relieved when Strange comes to find him.

‘’Hong Kong?’’ he says faintly. ‘’What’s in Hong Kong? Is there someone who can help me?’’

Strange eyes him. ‘’I hope so,’’ he eventually says. ‘’Master Minoru has more experience than I do when it comes to curses. She may be able to find out more about you than I am capable of, here.’’

‘’So she’ll look into it?’’ Tony asks. ‘’Does she have to meet me?’’

There’s a wince on Strange’s face, but it disappears as soon as it’s there. ‘’I hope she’ll be able to provide answers, yes,’’ he says. ‘’I will talk to her first; if she thinks it’s necessary to meet you, we’ll set something up. For now, you can stay in our Sanctum.’’

Tony hears the underlying remark. ‘’But you’re not sure I can stay,’’ he states. 

Stephen turns to him. ‘’You’re welcome as long as you want to be. But yes, perhaps it will be easier for Minoru if you were to stay in the Hong Kong Sanctum for a while.’’

Tony considers it. They’re not sending him away; it may not even happen. He doesn’t want to leave New York – it’s the only connection he has to everyone he cares about. The Avengers are here, and so is Pepper. The nagging feeling that he may be needed isn’t going away so easily, and he can’t be here if he’s in Hong Kong.

However, if his solution is in Hong Kong, he can’t argue with it. ‘’Just give me a head’s up,’’ he tells Strange, who nods at him.

He’s starting to feel like no one will be able to help him, but he ignores it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> right. so. chapter 4! I always think of funny stuff to say in the notes when I'm writing these things, but that's about two months ago, so I've already forgotten all about that. guess that's the drawback :) I hit 75k writing this fic yesterday, and it's the most I've ever written for a single fic, so I think that's cool, though I'm not even halfway yet.... we'll get there eventually!
> 
> by the way, if you spot any errors/typos, please tell me and I'll fix it. I'm not the best at proofreading my own work, and I miss stuff like that sometimes.
> 
> also, I have this headcanon that Stephen is a huge Queen fan. make of that what you will.

Stephen wakes up in very early in the morning with a racing heart and flashes of a nightmare still playing out in front of his eyes. The room is dark and the blankets are too heavy and hot; Stephen throws them off, only putting on a shirt to leave his room and walk down the empty hallways. No one is up yet, and he takes a deep breath. The library is far colder, but it doesn’t bother him as he sits down with the Sixth Book of Solomon, letting the words on the page calm him.

He dreams about the Sanctum burning down more often than not – the ancient walls crashing down, the books turning to ash and dust, the safety net of the world falling apart around them. His chest tightens at the mere thought of it, and he wishes more than anything that the Ancient One was still here. He remembers her presence as if she left yesterday. He remembers doubting her – she lied and hid secrets, but he knows her reasoning. If nothing else, the Ancient One knew what to do and how to go about it.

Stephen does not yet have her certainty, nor her knowledge. For years, he has worked to understand all he can about the Mystic Arts, but it will never live up to everything she knew. She taught him, but he wasn’t ready yet.

He’s not sure he is ready now, despite his arduous and continuous labouring. He always feels like he is missing something. Even now, he wonders why he of all people became the Sorcerer Supreme. Thinking of Tina Minoru, with her steadfast hands and knowing eyes, and wondering if he was truly the right choice, and if the Hong Kong Master should not have gained the Ancient One’s position.

Someone shuffles in; Stephen can feel them staring at him and consciously making the decision to back away. Perhaps, a bit earlier, he’d have let him.

‘’Tony,’’ he says. 

Tony Stark appears, his dark eyes regarding Stephen silently. He is a mess; his dark curls hang around his head lifelessly, and dark shadows are under his eyes. Stephen silently wonders if the man would like a haircut, but he hasn’t mentioned it yet.

‘’Strange,’’ Tony says politely. ‘’Sorry, I didn’t know you were here.’’

‘’That’s alright. Please, call me Stephen,’’ he answers. Tony offers him a wry smile, but it shines with sincerity, and he takes heart in that.

‘’Nice to see you don’t only wear medieval outfits, Stephen,’’ Tony comments, and sits down in the chair across his own. ‘’Where do you get those, anyway? Is there some sort of roleplaying shop nearby? I do appreciate the fact that you got me _normal_ clothes.’’

Stephen shakes his head at him, a small smile playing over his own lips. The company does him good, as the nightmare fades away from his mind. ‘’I think the Sanctum has an infinite storage of these outfits,’’ he tells him. ‘’No one knows where they come from. There must have been a sale, about five hundred years ago.’’

Tony laughs, and it’s a bright thing to hear. It echoes in the library, and Stephen finds himself grinning in response. ‘’Yeah, well, thanks for not making me wear those,’’ he says. ‘’Though if I got some of those clothes, maybe I would stop losing my socks. Do you even have socks? I’m curious.’’

‘’You’d be surprised, but yes, we do have them,’’ Stephen offers lightly. ‘’And being a sorcerer doesn’t excuse you from losing socks. Or getting holes in them.’’

‘’So what use is it being a sorcerer?’’ Tony teases him, and it feels unreal that Stephen is sitting here in the library in his underwear and a shirt, four in the morning, joking around with Tony Stark about socks.

He shrugs. ‘’Beats me. I’m just here for the free meals.’’

‘’Free-loader,’’ Tony tells him, and then they’re silent for a while. It’s companionable enough; Stephen returns to his book, and Tony reads one of his own. Stephen peacefully sits there for a while, but the quietness starts grating on him soon, even if he’s not alone anymore.

‘’Mind if I put on some music?’’ he asks Tony, who nods easily enough. ‘’It helps me work.’’

‘’Me too,’’ Tony says, and there’s something wistful in his expression. ‘’I used to blast AC/DC whenever I was working on my cars.’’

Stephen smiles at him even as he stands up to turn on the box that stands surreptitiously concealed in the corner of the library. Wong puts on music, too, when he’s sorting books, though Stephen isn’t sure he approves of Wong’s illegally downloaded playlist that’s filled with Beyoncé.

He will never stop teasing Wong about it, either, even as he opens his own playlist. ‘’I don’t have any AC/DC,’’ he tells Tony, ‘’but I have something better.’’

He watches Tony’s curious expression as the music starts. The man shakes his head. ‘’I’d never have taken you for a Queen fan, Stephen Strange. Aren’t sorcerers supposed to listen to freaky Indian music from the fourteenth century or something? Are you a _music fan_? You?’’

Stephen shrugs. ‘’I used to play songs while during surgeries. I always worked best with Queen.’’

The refrain of _Killer Queen_ starts, and Stephen hums under his breath as he goes back to his reading and ignores Tony’s amused headshake. 

~*~

Tony is surprised to find he actually likes Stephen, and that Stephen in turn seems to like him well enough too. Tony has never been the type to easily make friends: he’s too brash, too loud, too quick and flashy. The sorcerer only responds to his jokes in kind, though, and there’s a sort of easy companionship. Sometimes, Tony doesn’t see him for days on end, but when they do talk, it’s easy.

Well. It’s not as if Tony can’t use any friends, in his situation, despite the fact that he doesn’t see much of Stephen.

Still. He’s sitting in the library, spending the morning listening to Stephen hum to every Queen song that plays on the box, and feels more content than he has since he arrived at the Sanctum. The feeling doesn’t even disappear when Wong comes to get Stephen for the meeting with Tina Minoru.

He doesn’t yet know how bad his day will be.

~*~

Stephen bows his head to Master Minoru, immediately after he comes out of the portal that leads to the Hong Kong Sanctum. Wong follows him and does the same. Tina Minoru regards them for a few seconds before inclining her own head.

‘’Master Strange, Master Wong,’’ she says. She is still young, but there is an air about her that makes her seem older and wiser. Stephen has the feeling he is being dismissed as a threat when she turns around, her braid swinging behind her. She pours three cups of tea; no one else is present in the small room but them, and Stephen sits down as she hands him a cup.

‘’Master Minoru,’’ he answers. ‘’I have come to ask for your assistance in a matter brought to my attention not too long ago.’’

She tilts her head. ‘’What sort of matter is this?’’ she asks. Her voice is light, and she speaks without an accent. Though her native language is Cantonese, Stephen knows she’d come to the Sanctum for protection at an earlier age than most, and had been taught English by the former Master of the Hong Kong Sanctum. 

‘’A few weeks ago,’’ Stephen begins, as he warms his hands to the cup of tea, ‘’a man came to my Sanctum asking for refuge and help. He has been cursed to be forgotten by everyone around him. A mere few seconds after someone has talked to him, they’ll already start forgetting he ever existed. I managed to counteract his curse with a spell of my own to remember him, and a few other Masters in my Sanctum have done the same. Despite my best efforts, I haven’t been able to find any spell that will lift his curse or even found a similar case.’’

Minoru frowns at him, putting down her own cup of tea. ‘’What about the trace?’’ she asks. ‘’Does it not lead anywhere?’’

Stephen shakes his head. ‘’It’s too faint for us to locate the one who cast it,’’ he explains. ‘’Besides that, the spell emits a huge amount of energy – we can’t forcefully remove it, or we don’t know what will happen. I’m not even sure I _can_ remove it should we want to.’’

Minoru nods slowly, but her eyes are focused on something far away. ‘’I may have some answers,’’ she says slowly. ‘’Though I’m not sure it will be answers that you like. Once, a long time ago – well, I will search for whatever information I can. I don’t know when I will have the time, for there are many other demands on my time as well.’’

‘’I understand. Do you need to meet him?’’ Stephen asks. ‘’He is a refugee in my Sanctum for now.’’

‘’Not yet,’’ Minoru answers with a quick smile before she sips from her tea, and scribbles down a quick note on the matter. ‘’I will meet him later, and perform your spell to counteract his. I have much to do, but I promise you that I will look into it. Now, have you already talked to Master Wright about your missing novices?’’

‘’Hardly novices, Master Minoru,’’ Stephen corrects her.

‘’We have a meeting with him as soon as we're ready here,’’ Wong continues, breaking his watchful silence. ‘’There is reason to be wary, but no reason to be anxious, Master. It has always been the way of our community to let our sorcerers back out in the open whenever they choose.’’

Minoru dips her head in acknowledgement. ‘’You’re right, of course. You haven’t met Alexander Wright yet, have you, Master Strange?’’

‘’Not yet,’’ Stephen says. ‘’Now is as good a time as any.’’

‘’Of course. Well, I wish you good fortune with finding out what has happened to the sorcerers of your Sanctum, and do keep me updated. Pass along my greetings to Master Wright. In the meanwhile, Master Strange, I will try to find out what I can about your mysterious curse.’’

Stephen nods and stands up. ‘’Thank you,’’ he says, and she raises her eyebrows at him, amused. She does not waste much more time on pleasantries; she bids him a kind farewell and then he and Wong are on his way to the third and final Master of a Sanctum.

~*~

Tony stares long and hard at the headline. Maybe it was not the best idea ever to look up the news, but he’s been doing it for days, and it had never caused him such turmoil.

Pepper is on the front page, a picture of her smiling in a perfectly fitted white suit alongside the article. She’s doing better than ever: the article tells about her new deal with a big company in Tokyo, and she is successful and beautiful and bright. Tony isn’t mentioned in the article, but at this point, he’s past hoping for the impossible. It’s only a dull throbbing, barely even noticeable next to the ache of seeing Pepper so clearly for the first time in weeks.

‘’Shit,’’ he mentions, as he feels the tears prickling behind his eyes. He wipes them away before they can fall, swearing at himself in the meantime. He hasn’t cried since – well, he doesn’t even remember. It’s all taking its toll – the curse, missing Pepper, being alone all the time. He can’t go home, he can’t go anywhere. He’s stuck, his life inside the hands of the Sorcerer Supreme, and even in the Sanctum, he can’t seem to find any answers.

He swears again, feeling an anxiety attack coming, and flings the newspaper to the wall. It falls open on another section, but Pepper’s image is burned on the inside of his eyes. He activates his phone without even thinking about it and puts in Pepper’s phone number. His finger just hovers over the green button before he stops himself.

What is he doing? What is he achieving with any of this?

It doesn’t matter. None of it matters but the fact that he loves her and needs to hear from her, and he ticks the green button lightly and presses the phone to his ear.

It rings once, twice –

‘’Virginia Potts speaking,’’ comes her crisp voice. ‘’Who is this?’’

‘’Pepper,’’ he croaks, and he didn’t know he was crying until he heard his voice so broken. ‘’Pepper, it’s me – Tony. Pepper, can you just please –‘’

‘’Who are you?’’ she asks, sounding confused. ‘’How did you get this number?’’

‘’You have to remember me,’’ he tells her. If he wills it enough – how could she forget? Even despite a spell, _how could she forget_? She is his entire world, and she _forgot_ all about him.

Somewhere out there, someone must be laughing at him. Tony is sure of it.

‘’Look, I don’t know who you are,’’ Pepper says sternly. ‘’Don’t call me again.’’ And then she hangs up.

Tony looks at the phone in his hand for a few seconds, before calling her again. She doesn’t answer. He tries again, and again. The fourth time, he gets a message saying she’s blocked his number.

Tony slides down the wall and pretends to not be as wrecked as he is.

~*~

Stephen isn’t sure what he expected, but it’s not the fragile blonde man that is waiting for them. Just like Minoru, Alexander Wright doesn’t bother with many niceties, but Stephen feels that it’s more likely that it is because Master Wright is too tired to deal with it.

He sits on a couch for the entire meeting, which, to be fair, doesn’t take long at all.

‘’I apologize for not being of more assistance,’’ Wright says sincerely. ‘’All I know is that they have vanished, and I haven’t the faintest where they are. I’ve sent out some of the London Masters to search, but there was no magic involved, so it is difficult to track them.’’

‘’And have you been on a search?’’ Stephen asks.

Wright smiles ironically. ‘’You must think I am a weak Master, not to look for my own followers. But have you been looking for yours, Master Strange?’’ At Stephen’s silence, he continues. ‘’Dealing with a Sanctum takes a lot of effort and time, as I am sure you are aware, especially for a learning Master. As it happens, I have been quite ill for a few months. I am recovering, but it does take some time.’’

‘’Ill?’’ Wong repeats. ‘’In what way?’’

But Master Wright shakes his head. ‘’A complicated ailment that had its consequences. Do not concern yourself with my health, Master Wong; I will recover soon enough, and that’s all that matters at this point.’’

‘’In any case, I’m sorry to hear it, Master Wright,’’ Stephen says. ‘’If there’s anything the New York Sanctum can do for you, we’d be glad to help.’’

Wright inclines his head in thanks. ‘’Thank you for the offer, but I am well aware that you’re busy enough, Master Strange. My own Sanctum takes care of my needs well enough. If you truly want to assist, you’ll help me find out whatever happened to our missing sorcerers.’’

‘’I endeavour to, Master Wright,’’ Stephen tells him.

All in all, there’s not much they can do but wait it out, and Stephen leaves with Wong, in an increasingly bad mood.

~*~

‘’That was less than helpful,’’ Stephen mutters as they arrive home through another portal. ‘’Wright practically shoved the entire issue in our laps. What does he think we can do?’’

Wong shrugs. ‘’I’ll do the rounds to see if anyone can remember anything about our departed sorcerers, and maybe find an address or phone number. These days it’s easy to get in touch with someone.’’

‘’Except when they don’t want to get in touch,’’ he responds, and sighs. They walk down the corridor, and Stephen intends to go to his own working room when he sees two sorcerers standing there, eagerly looking at him as he nears.

Wong eyes him. ‘’You have a Sanctum to run,’’ his friend informs him. ‘’Run it, and I’ll try to find out whatever I can.’’

‘’Thank you,’’ Stephen says earnestly, and Wong only nods shortly before he goes down another corridor.

‘’Master Strange,’’ the young sorcerers incline their heads, and he smiles politely, despite the fact that he wants to fall down in his bed with a cup of coffee and an interesting manuscript and stop the day. He is beyond tired and annoyed, but he can’t show it to the people who rely on him.

So he shoves down the feeling and nods back at the two. ‘’How can I help you?’’

~*~

Tony isn’t having a good day. After calling Pepper and getting blocked as a result, he decides to go the kitchen for coffee. He didn’t exactly have a good night – or several nights, actually – so he’s bone tired. It’s just his luck that the coffee machine turns out to be broken, and Simeon is in there, and Tony forgot Stephen’s note in his room, so he gets shoed out without a kind word to spare. He goes back to the library, instead, and on the way, all the sorcerers from the Sanctum stare at him with some incomprehension. He’s a sore sight with his ordinary clothes, and he snaps at them until they go away. It’s not as if they’ll remember, and it only manages to sour his mood further.

The library isn’t empty and Tony loses interest quickly, and so his trip returns to his small room with only a bed and a desk. There’s a few books on it, the ones that Stephen gave to him, and Tony stares at them for a moment. They don’t contain answers, not the ones that he needs, anyway.

Before he realizes, he shoves all of them from the desk and kicks at the chair in front of the desk until it falls on its side with a loud thump. Only then he turns to the desk itself, hitting and shouting himself hoarse and he doesn’t even notice he’s crying until that’s the only thing he’s doing.

‘’Shit,’’ he says, throat aching, and looks around the room. He’s made a mess of it, small as the space is; he shakes his head to himself. He can’t do this – not now, not ever. He should never have made that call, he couldn’t have expected Pepper to know him, not when it’s all the reason he’s here in the first place. He made the decision to find a way to get better, and now he’s getting closer, he can’t throw it away. Stephen went to that Master Minoru today, and she may have more answers. Tony takes a deep breath, trying to calm himself. 

He’s cleaning up his mess when he hears Stephen’s voice drift into the hallway; immediately he leaves his room, poking his head out to see the Sorcerer Supreme walk besides a smaller Asian man, one of the Masters that remembers Tony too, talking to him about something.

‘’Stephen,’’ he says, and the man’s head swings to him. ‘’When did you get back?’’

‘’A few hours ago,’’ Stephen answers absentmindedly. ‘’Master Haman, we can discuss the matter further during dinner. I’m sure we can work out a proper programme for your student, one that will benefit your entire classroom.’’

The Master leaves with a nod to both Stephen and Tony, and then they’re alone in the hallway.

‘’Did you talk to Minoru?’’ Tony asks.

Stephen nods. ‘’She will look into the matter,’’ he answers, and then starts walking again. 

Tony blinks, and then walks after him. ‘’Wait, that’s it?’’ he demands, and Stephen stands still again. ‘’She will look into it? That’s all you discussed?’’

Stephen sighs. ‘’I’ll tell you more later, but right now I’m –‘’

‘’This is my _life_ ,’’ Tony stresses. ‘’I know it’s just a, I don’t know, a case to you, a poor soul to help, such a sob story, but I’m _living_ this. I want to go back to what I had, Stephen, because for once in my life, I had a lot to lose. Guess what, I _lost it_. So I think I’m entitled to hear what she told you and to know if I’ll ever get it back or not!’’

The sorcerer turns on him. ‘’I’m _helping_ you out here, which is more than what anyone else has done so far, and you definitely couldn’t do it without me,’’ he says sharply. ‘’You’re right, you’re just another soul to help, and right now, I have dozens of other souls that need my time too and those aren’t self-entitled asses!’’

Tony takes a step back, shock and anger and a dozen other feelings rushing through him. ‘’I’m sorry I ever imposed on your hospitality, then, doctor Strange,’’ he says scathingly. ‘’You can just remove that spell you put on yourself and I’ll be out of your hair with no one the wiser, not even you.’’

With that, he turns and moves, and he doesn’t even notice Stephen yelling out his name as he runs, and runs, until he runs out of the Sanctum and into the wide world, memories threatening to overcome him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments turn exhausted writers into happy ones ;)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmm... you remember the ending of the last chapter?
> 
> sorry. you're going to have to wait a little while longer to see how that'll go.

_A few months earlier…_

‘’Did you bring the blueprints I asked for?’’ Tony asks.

Pepper looks up, a touch of confusion in her eyes as she focuses on him. ‘’What blueprints?’’

Tony raises his eyebrows. ‘’I asked you very specifically for the blueprints Johnson talked about,’’ he says slowly. ‘’You said you’d bring them.’’

‘’I don’t remember,’’ she says, frowning. ‘’I’m sorry, Tony, but I’ve been so busy lately. Can’t you just have him email you?’’ With that, she walks out of the room.

‘’Not quite the point I’m trying to make!’’ Tony shouts after her disappearing form, and shakes his head before pulling out his phone to email Johnson.

He doesn’t think about it afterwards.

~*~

It’s a long day, and Tony has a headache. He’s stepped away from the Avengers Initiative – or well, at least he’s not as actively involved as he used to be. Still, even with Rogers and Romanoff leading the newest members and recruiting new associates, Tony needs to be at team meetings. Particularly if they’re reviewing a mission he was on.

Mostly he just sits back and lets Rogers do the talking. He makes it a point to converse as little as possible with the soldier, but they’ve reached a tentative peace. Ever since Bruce came back, dropped off ingloriously by Thor and his band of home-searching Asgardians, things have been better between the old team and they’ve been patching things up, slowly but steadily.

Tony isn’t one to easily forgive and forget, but he knows the necessity of the Avengers. Besides, he gets away with saying two words to Rogers per meeting, because everyone knows well enough that’s his limit. And ever since Vision and Wanda left the team to be on their own for a little while in a little remote village, and Clint retired back to his family, the team has calmed down and regained some of their old peace with a few newer members and some of the old ones.

So while Tony usually can sit in between Rhodey and Bruce without talking to the team members he hasn’t become comfortable with again since the Civil War, this meeting turns out to be different. Just on the same day that Tony has had to deal with obnoxious R&D associates who seem to forget every little thing he had pointed out about their design and had to run all over the building for a part that should’ve been delivered to him but had been left somewhere else.

‘’So then Colonel Rhodes aimed for the robot’s head, and –‘’ 

‘’That was me,’’ Tony interrupts, shaking his head at Rogers. ‘’C’mon, are you getting forgetful in your old age? Rhodey was melting his feet, and I was aiming for his head.’’

Rogers look at him blankly for a few seconds, as if he’d forgotten that Tony was even in the room. It rankles, to be honest. ‘’That’s true,’’ he says slowly.

‘’I know it’s true, I was there,’’ Tony points out. 

‘’Let’s continue,’’ Natasha cuts them off. ‘’So, after Tony arrived there –‘’

‘’What the hell is going on with you?’’ Tony demands. ‘’I went with you, remember? No one arrived later.’’

‘’Are you sure, Tones?’’ Rhodey says. ‘’I don’t remember you were there.’’

Tony looks at his friend. ‘’We were having lunch here before the call, Rhodey. You were telling me about an issue with your repulsor – which I fixed, by the way – and then the call came in. How do you not remember?’’

‘’Look, it’s been a long day,’’ Rogers interjects. ‘’We’re almost done, and then we can all file our reports, and then we can get some sleep.’’

Tony looks around the room, but no one seems to think anything odd is happening. He bites his lip and doesn’t say anything.

Whatever it is, he’s sure it’ll pass in time.

~*~

It doesn’t pass in time.

Tony is slowly getting worried, but he’s not sure what _for_. It can hardly be that everyone in his environment is getting forgetful.

Can it?

~*~

‘’Mr Stark!’’ Peter says, bouncing excitedly in that way he always does when Tony comes to visit. ‘’You _have_ to hear what happened in the Avengers Compound last time I was there!’’

Tony smiles as the kid lets him in, babbling about his newest training regimen and the adventures of a part-time Avenger. He hadn’t wanted to introduce Peter into the Avengers Initiative, but after a lot of discussion with his aunt May, they’d both come to the conclusion that the safest place Peter could be was in the hands of experienced superheroes. That way, Peter would be part of a team instead of working solo, and could always be backed up and trained by people with a similar skillset. 

And so Peter became a part-time Avenger, and he’d thrived under the training and care of his fellow super-humans. Tony is more proud than he’d care to admit of his young trainee, a kid he has grown to care about deeply.

And it seems that Peter is the only one still acting normally. Tony takes some solace in that and settles down on the couch to hear Peter rave about training with Falcon and _winning_ , while May greets him.

He settles in and mainly listens to Peter talk, until they start talking about potential upgrades to the Spider-Man suit and what would and wouldn’t work with Peter’s style of fighting. Tony loses some of the tension he’s been holding onto for days, lets the kid talk, and feels content in the knowledge that he means a lot to Peter, too.

Peter won’t become so stressed or overworked to forget him. It’s definitely some sort of fluke, and everything will turn out alright soon enough. 

~*~

‘’A science fair?’’ Tony repeats. ‘’Rogers is at a science fair?’’

Romanoff looks at him somewhat apologetically. ‘’Yeah, Peter invited him,’’ she says. ‘’Don’t worry about it, we can handle one meeting without Steve here.’’

‘’Peter invited Steve Rogers to a science fair?’’ Tony says incredulously. Somewhere, his chest constricts. He wasn’t even aware that Peter had a science fair coming up; if he had known, he kind of would have assumed…

Well, he would have assumed that Peter would invite him, instead of the Star Spangled Man with a Plan. Maybe they’ve grown closer than Tony knows, with the trainings and the battles and the meetings. Maybe he doesn’t need Tony as much as he used to, now that he is in an actual superhero team. It’s not as if Tony is still to be found regularly at Avengers Compound; he only goes there for meetings and debriefs, and to drop off equipment now and then. Sometimes he uses the lab to test his suits, but that’s it.

Does Peter feel abandoned by him? Has Tony said something? He can’t think of a single reason that Peter wouldn’t tell him about the science fair, unless Tony has done something wrong that Peter hasn’t told him about.

‘’Why didn’t he invite me?’’ he asks, and maybe he sounds more hurt than he means to let on.

Natasha gives him a soft look. ‘’He’s a teenager, maybe he just forgot,’’ she says. ‘’Peter is a good kid, but teenagers tend not to overthink these sort of things. Don’t worry about it, Tony.’’

Tony mulls over it, and accepts it, though he’s still somewhat disappointed. He is distracted throughout the meeting, but no one seems to notice but Bruce. He can see the other man’s eyes flick between him and Natasha, a thoughtful frown on his face. 

~*~

Pepper doesn’t show up to dinner. Tony sits alone in the fancy restaurant, people passing him by without a second glance, and watches the time roll by. 

He calls her.

‘’Oh, I’m so sorry, Tony,’’ she says as she picks up. ‘’I completely forgot.’’

Tony celebrates their anniversary by himself.

~*~

‘’Why didn’t you just redirect the output?’’ Tony asks the young engineer, and she looks at him with some confusion.

‘’I didn’t think of it,’’ she says, absent-mindedly screwing at her invention.

Tony blinks. ‘’I told you to do that the last time I was here. Weren’t you paying attention?’’

‘’I’m so sorry, Mr Stark, I will do better. I just forgot, that’s all.’’

It seems Tony is hearing these words a lot, these days. _I forgot_.

~*~

The next time Tony walks into the Avengers Compound, Bruce is waiting for him. ‘’Something’s weird,’’ Bruce says. ‘’Have you noticed?’’

‘’Everyone being unusually scatter-brained?’’ Tony asks, and Bruce nods. It fills him with some hope, that he’s not the only one who has discerned it. He almost thought he was the one with the problem. ‘’I’ve noticed. I thought it was because everyone has been so busy, lately.’’

Bruce shrugs. ‘’Could be it. But, well – it’s weird. Just the other day, when some of the new suits you’d made were dropped off here, Rhodey asked who they were coming from.’’

‘’What?’’ Tony says unbelieving. ‘’Rhodey forgot?’’

‘’Something’s wrong here, and we’re going to figure out what it is,’’ Bruce tells him.

~*~

They draw blood from the others, telling them it’s for an experiment. Rogers is somewhat suspicious, but as soon as he believes they don’t intend to recreate the super-soldier serum, he backs off and lets them work in peace. 

Broken trust all around, Tony reflects bitterly. Ultron, the Civil War; it’s almost a miracle that they’re here again, all part of the same team. 

As if recreating the serum is Tony’s biggest priority, right now. It may be for the best if no one ever manages to recreate what Abraham Erskine made. Still, they search for anomalies in the Avengers’ blood, but there’s nothing that they manage to find. Tony plays glorified lab assistant to Bruce, mostly, whose knowledge on the biological is superior to his. Still, Tony is a genius and a fast learner, and he spends enough time pouring over the cells himself.

There’s nothing there in as far as he can find, but they aren’t going to give up. There must be something.

~*~

‘’How was your day?’’ Tony asks Pepper as she comes home from Stark Industries. He only just came back from the lab himself, reading up on all kinds of freaky diseases. So far, he hasn’t found anything that might be able to explain why everyone is forgetting stuff at the same time.

It almost makes him wonder if there’s someone behind it – but if that’s the case, why isn’t he forgetting stuff? Or maybe he is: it’s not as if he would remember what he forgot. He frowns at the thought and focuses on Pepper again.

‘’Oh, Tony,’’ she says, and smiles at him as he kisses her cheek. ‘’It was fine. Busy day, though. There was a board of directors meeting, and we discussed the new line of Stark phones. We believe it will bring in a lot of profit for us, though there still are some things to tweak –‘’

‘’I know,’’ Tony tells her, shaking his head. ‘’You told me this on the phone. I called you during lunch, remember?’’

Pepper looks at him. ‘’Oh, yeah,’’ she says vaguely, and walks out of the room again.

‘’FRIDAY? I did call her, didn’t I?’’

It’s only silent for a moment. ‘’Yes, boss. You definitely did.’’

Tony looks apprehensively to where Pepper disappeared. ‘’Good. Then I’m not imagining things.’’

~*~

He and Bruce work relentlessly, but don’t manage to find anything that matches the symptoms they’ve seen so far. They do MRI scans and dozens of other tests that seem like they may give them an answer, but there’s no logical solution to be found. Tony pulls all-nighters like he hasn’t since his MIT days and becomes more of an expert on the human brain than some neurosurgeons would be able to say.

Speaking of neurosurgeons –

‘’Strange could possibly help,’’ Bruce says, fiddling with his glasses. ‘’He used to be a neurosurgeon, and a great one, too. Besides, maybe he’ll be able to explain to us what’s going on with the use of some magic.’’

‘’Look, we’ll figure it out ourselves,’’ he says, though it’s been going on for weeks now. ‘’We’ll figure it out without the help of sorcerers.’’

Tony has always managed to save himself. This isn’t going to be the day that he can’t.

~*~

He smiles when Peter arrives at Avengers Compound when Tony’s there, too. It was planned like that: he’d brought a new suit for Peter, just in time for his weekly training. Peter walks into the lab with Rogers, and seeing them talk so friendly to each other makes something in Tony burn. Peter doesn’t call and text him as often as he used to, and he’s starting to feel replaced.

It’s not a great feeling, and Tony attempts to hide it.

‘’Hey, kid,’’ he says, and hands him over the new suit. ‘’I’m feeling like a delivery service right now. Do you want to go over the changes, just like we discussed?’’

Peter looks a bit confused, until his gaze clears up. ‘’That seems great, Mister.’’

Mister? What happened to Mr Stark?

If Peter doesn’t remember most of what they discussed on the upgrades while Tony explains, he tries not to let it bother him. 

Even when he starts to suspect that Peter forgot his name, he tries to keep the smile plastered to his face and go on. 

~*~

‘’Bruce,’’ Tony says, walking into the lab that’s filled with notes on diseases, on the brain, on anything that may help them explain what is happening to everyone around them. ‘’Have you found something? You texted me.’’

Bruce turns to him, his face pale. ‘’It’s not just that everyone is being forgetful,’’ the man says, as he plays with the hems of his long white lab coat. ‘’It’s that everyone is forgetting _you_. There’s nothing wrong with them, but with _you_.’’

Tony takes a deep breath, and rolls up his own sleeve.

‘’Then we’re going to start all over again,’’ he says determinedly, ‘’but this time, we’re testing me.’’

Bruce nods at him grimly, and they begin for a second time.

~*~

Pepper doesn’t go home to Tony’s home, but goes to her own barely-used home. She’d only kept it out of nostalgia, she’d said, and because moving in with Tony hadn’t exactly been the plan. It had just happened. There was still some furniture there, and some of Pepper’s old stuff, but she hasn’t gone there in months.

She blinks when Tony asks her why she didn’t come to their home.

‘’I’m not sure,’’ she says thoughtfully, and looks at him as if she isn’t sure who he is, either.

~*~

Tony’s main job is to find out whatever is wrong with him, or with everyone around him, or what other possibilities there are. He sleeps in his lab at the Avengers Compound now, sometimes, when he can’t deal with the confused stares that people are starting to send him.

‘’Bruce,’’ he says, as he walks into Bruce’s lab at seven in the morning. ‘’We need answers, right now. If I have to go one more day with – Bruce?’’

Bruce stares at him. ‘’Tony,’’ the man says slowly, and pushes up his glasses. ‘’I’m sorry, why are you here again?’’

‘’The MRI scan,’’ he says helplessly. ‘’ _Any_ of the other tests we did. I lost count after the seventh. Did you find anything out of the ordinary?’’

‘’What MRI scan?’’ Bruce asks, peering at him.

Tony walks out again, and tries not to tremble.

~*~

‘’Are you allowed to be here?’’ Rhodey asks him sternly when he finds Tony sitting on the grass, just outside of the Compound. ‘’You’re trespassing, sir. If you don’t leave right now, you’ll be forcefully removed.’’

Tony blinks at Rhodey. ‘’You don’t remember me, do you?’’ he asks. There’s a hollow place in his chest where his heart should be. Maybe he doesn’t have a heart, but otherwise, he’s sure there is an arc reactor in its place. Still, he feels numb.

‘’Should I?’’ Rhodey asks, and his face is stern. There’s nothing left of the compassionate, fond looks his friend used to give him. ‘’Now leave, before we make you leave.’’

Tony shrugs. He doesn’t know what to say, so he stands up and walks away. He tries not to think about all the years Rhodey has had his back, and instead repeats possible diseases to himself.

~*~

Tony walks around for a few hours to clear his mind, but he knows that it’s only procrastination. He’s not exactly sure about what he _can_ do. 

He doesn’t have anywhere to go, so when evening arrives, he decides to just go home. At least he has his tech there – his suits and his robots and FRIDAY, the only one who remembers him. He drives until he arrives. The streets are full: summer is arriving, and people are relishing the sun’s warmth. They don’t look at him, not even the slow walkers that are sure to be only visiting the city.

Tony knows that a lot of New Yorkers are more down-to-earth when it comes to superheroes, but he always used to have tourists and paparazzi surrounding him. Now, everyone leaves him alone.

Well, if his closest friends can forget who he is, it makes sense that strangers won’t know him either.

He walks in, and ignores the stares he gets when he starts for the penthouse. A bodyguard stops him just as he wants to get into the elevator, and Tony looks up, bewildered.

‘’Are you authorized to go in there, sir?’’ the man asks, his face hard. 

‘’Yeah, I am,’’ he says, frowning, and fumbles through the contents of his pockets to find his pass, showing it to the man. All authorized personnel and such have one, but Tony has never had to show his before. Everyone knows him, after all – well, not anymore. The bodyguard nods at him upon seeing it.

‘’Let me just run this past security for you, and I’ll get it back to you,’’ the man says, and he takes Tony’s pass and goes to the front desk. Tony waits – he could throw a tantrum, but he’s sure it won’t help a bit. He forces himself to be patient as the bodyguard walks, clearly checking the pass for himself before he passes it along to the woman that’s sitting behind the desk today. But then something odd happens.

They don’t check it. It’s like they forget what they’re doing, and the pass rests beside the woman’s arm, but she clearly isn’t checking it. Tony narrows his gaze at her, and starts walking towards her. ‘’Excuse me, but weren’t you going to check that for me?’’ he says, nodding at the pass. 

The woman looks up at him. ‘’I’m sorry?’’ she offers.

‘’The pass. That bodyguard just gave it to you, to see if it checks out. So I can go upstairs.’’

‘’I don’t remember that,’’ she says. ‘’I’m sorry, sir, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave.’’

‘’Leave?’’ Tony repeats incredulously. ‘’I live here. Hey, here’s an idea: check the damn pass and let me up.’’

She shifts, and Tony can just feel her pressing the alarm button. Great – he must look really aggravated. It’s nothing compared to how anxious he feels at this turn of events. Tony turns to see the same bodyguard turning to him. ‘’Sir, you have to leave now,’’ he says sternly.

‘’I just gave you the pass!’’ he yells at him. ‘’It was a minute ago!’’

‘’I think I’d remember that. If you do not leave, I will have to use force, sir. The police has already been alerted to your presence.’’

‘’Shit,’’ Tony mutters, and calculates his options. If what he thinks is happening is true, then he can get back in here easily. ‘’Right. Fine. I’m going, okay? I’m going.’’ He leaves the building, hands up in the air with his palms visible to show them he doesn’t mean ill. 

The guard and the desk girl – they forgot about him in less than a minute. He stares at the entrance, wondering how long he’ll have to wait to be able to try again. He has a hypothesis, and the time has come for him to test it. He goes in after only ten minutes, worry clouding his mind. His pass is still at the desk, and he needs it to use the elevator – he’ll either have to steal it back, or use someone else’s. Like the guard’s security pass.

For once, luck is with him. Two policemen enter the building after him, greeting the guard. Tony creeps closer, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible before they’ll throw him out again. Still, they don’t notice him while they’re talking to each other.

‘’So what did you raise the alarm for?’’ one of the policeman asks. He looks rather annoyed – they must have hurried, to be here so soon. Not that Tony is surprised by that: Stark Tower has great security, and he’s sure the police knows it’s an important building, even if no one remembers Tony. It’s odd, that some things about him are completely forgotten and others slightly remain. 

‘’It must have gone off accidentally,’’ the guard says. ‘’Nothing out of the ordinary happened here.’’

Tony grimaces. Hypothesis confirmed; they don’t remember him at all, and that in such a short time. He bumps into the guard, reaching into his pocket at the same time. ‘’Oh, sorry,’’ he says, grinning toothily. ‘’I’m so clumsy.’’

‘’Watch where you’re going,’’ the guard snaps at him. God, but Tony wants to fire him.

‘’Sorry,’’ he says, trying to radiate as much innocence as he can. ‘’Won’t happen again.’’

The guard’s attention returns to the police officers again, and Tony takes the opportunity to slip into the elevator with his stolen pass. Being forgotten is exhausting.

‘’FRIDAY,’’ he says once in the elevator. She doesn’t respond, and he frowns. ‘’FRIDAY? You there?’’ A heavy silence – Tony gets a bad feeling. FRIDAY is online in the entire building, though she doesn’t usually say anything until specifically addressed. She always responds to Tony, anyway, as he’s her primary user. Pepper is her secondary user, but maybe, if Pepper doesn’t remember Tony, she doesn’t remember what FRIDAY is for –

has Pepper shut off FRIDAY?

The elevator pings as they reach Tony’s floor. He shuffles away. ‘’FRIDAY,’’ he murmurs once more, but the silence is answer enough. He can’t get her online, not from this floor, and he doesn’t want to face any more people if he can avoid it. His situation makes everything beyond complicated, and now he has to consider even the simplest of actions.

‘’Pepper,’’ he calls out instead. He remembers she has a day off – she’s varied between staying at her own place and staying here, without an explanation for either, but at least it means there’s a chance she’s here. He has to say goodbye to her, explain everything to her. Maybe he can make a video that she can watch so that she’ll remember him. There must be some way to remind her of his existence, a way to promise her he’ll solve this. He’ll lock himself up in his lab and work relentlessly, he can install a temporary AI there, he can –

All thoughts fly from his mind as he sees Pepper in the living room, lying on the couch. She’s not alone, and it takes Tony a second to recognize the man who’s kissing her so passionately, because he doesn’t quite want to believe that it’s Rhodey. He freezes at the sight of them, but he’s sure of it – that’s Pepper and Rhodey, hands on each other as if they can’t keep away.

Rhodey and Pepper, kissing. 

‘’Pepper?’’ Tony croaks, eyes wide. Pepper and Rhodey fly up.

‘’Who are you?’’ Pepper demands as she sits up instantaneously, and Rhodey stands up.

She doesn’t remember him, she hasn’t for a while now, and Tony has completely missed –

He breathes in deeply. ‘’Pepper,’’ he starts. ‘’Rhodey. I know you don’t remember me now, but _please_ , I can make everything right – everything can go back to normal, I promise, you just have to –‘’

‘’Get out of here, right now,’’ Rhodey says, and Tony doesn’t imagine the threat in his voice. He knows Rhodey is more dangerous than a lot of people assume when they first see him, and he takes a step back. He thinks of the morning, when Rhodey said much along the same lines, and hurts. ‘’How did you even get in here?’’

‘’Rhodey, please –‘’

‘’Now,’’ Rhodey repeats, and grabs a phone. ‘’Security? There’s a man in the penthouse. Please come collect him right now.’’

‘’Please,’’ Tony begs, and he doesn’t even know what he’s asking for anymore. _Please don’t leave me? Please don’t forget me? Please don’t hurt me?_

It’s far too late for that. They’ve done all of that, and the only one who knows is Tony.

He runs back into the elevator, quivering all over, trying to calm himself as he takes deep breath and ignores the panic attack that is climbing up. When he gets back to ground floor, security is waiting there – but they seem to have forgotten what they’re meant to do.

Upstairs, Rhodey and Pepper will probably have already forgotten what happened, too.

Tony chokes and runs, runs, runs.

~*~

_The present_

Tony runs, and runs, and runs, even as Stephen yells his name from behind him.

Tony’s world is in shambles, and not even the Sanctum can help him now.

He’s not sure anyone can.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have exams next week, one on Wednesday evening, so next chapter may not be on time. if I don't manage to, it'll be posted Thursday, but just so everyone is aware.
> 
> comments are appreciated more than anything in the world, as always :)


	6. Chapter 6

Stephen watches Tony disappear from Bleecker Street and feels his chest tighten. He didn’t mean to lash out – he’d been tired, and annoyed, and he’d lost his temper. And now Tony is on the run.

He’s feeling increasingly worse. He can’t simply create a portal to find Tony; it would draw too much attention, and the people of New York have seen a lot, but that’s no reason for Stephen to casually perform magic out in the open. It’s bound to make people start asking questions. They have an emergency car for moments like these, but he doesn’t know where to start searching - besides, he’s not sure Tony would come with him now if he asked.

He’s not sure he can blame him, either.

~*~

Tony runs, and he doesn’t know where he’s going until he’s standing in front of Stark Tower. He stops, out of breath, in the middle of the street. A car honks at him, and Tony flinches before shuffling over to the sidewalk. A few people send him annoyed looks, but he manages to ignore them and stares at the huge Stark logo hanging on the building before him.

He shakes his head at it, and goes inside before he can think the better of it. He doesn’t see the bodyguard that gave him so much trouble the last time he was here, but it doesn’t matter anyway: the man wouldn’t remember him anyway. Tony can get away with anything right now, and it’s a bitter thought. He just wants everyone to remember him. He wants Pepper to remember him, and Rhodey, and Peter, and Bruce. Even Steve and Natasha. He moves down to one of the couches and sits down. His phone is still in his pocket, and he fishes it out.

He remembers decorating the Tower with Pepper, discussing how everything would fit. She’d loved him, then, and it had all been so much easier. She doesn’t know who Tony is, now, and she seems further away than she’d ever been. Even in that Afghan cave, Tony had known that she would be concerned that he was gone, despite the total lack of a romantic relationship back then. Tony and Pepper – they’ve always cared about each other, one way or another. Now only Tony remembers, and he’s not sure he’ll get her back.

He remembers her lying on the couch with Rhodey, and is not sure he’ll get her back even if her memories return.

He can’t think about that right now, Tony resolves. Pepper is the reason he’d carried on for a long while after Afghanistan, but he can’t rely on her to solve all his problems. He’d die for her, but first, he has to _live_ for her, and that’s the infinitely more difficult thing to do. He has to find the iron in his bones and beat back this curse, whether it’s with or without the Sanctum’s help. More impossible fights have been won, and he feels something harden in himself as he clutches the phone.

‘’Right,’’ he says, and starts typing. ‘’Let’s be a masochist and find out how people react to proof I exist.’’

~*~

‘’You’re an idiot,’’ Wong says bluntly.

‘’You’ve said that already,’’ Stephen tells him in frustration. ‘’I know, Wong. I know I made a mistake. You don’t have to keep reminding me of how thoroughly I fuck up every time, _because I know_.’’

Wong frowns at him. ‘’You need to calm down before searching for Tony. I will send out Master Haman and Master Chen to look for him, and then we can join the search.’’

‘’Master Haman is busy,’’ Stephen says. ‘’This is my fault, I’ll fix it.’’

‘’No, you won’t,’’ Wong says sharply, and continues before Stephen can continue. ‘’You are exhausted and stressed. You need to recognize your own limits before imposing them on others. You are twice as busy as Master Haman, and your Sanctum is here to assist you when you need it to. To be the Master to a Sanctum means to be helped, too, Stephen. Don’t forget that.’’

‘’How can I be a good Master if I keep making mistakes like these?’’ Stephen demands, sitting down. His cloak pets his cheek as if to comfort him, and he doesn’t attempt to brush it off like he had at the beginning. It’s become somewhat of a silent comrade, and he can use the friendship right now. ‘’Maybe I’m not supposed to be here, Wong. Maybe the reason it’s going wrong is because I’m a doctor, and not a Master of the Mystic Arts. I’ve been here for what – how many years? Nothing, in comparison to the other Masters here. Maybe –‘’

Wong crosses his arms and stares him down. ‘’You’re an idiot,’’ he repeats.

‘’Yes, we’ve been over that, thank you.’’

‘’I’m serious. Stephen, you are being disgraceful of your title. You are not Sorcerer Supreme because you are meant to be – you’re Sorcerer Supreme because you are the most gifted sorcerer the Sanctums have seen in decades, and because you’re willing to stay here and fight for our cause. You are here because in only a few short years, you’ve outgrown Masters who have been here their whole life. You are here because you are a leader, because you know how to deal with difficult situations, because you stepped up the minute you had to. Because we trust you to lead us and to do the right thing. And so far, you have not let us down. Do you think the Ancient One, for all her experience, did not have issues? You have known her for too short a time to see the doubts she had.’’

Stephen thinks back to the night outside the hospital, talking to her in the last seconds before her death. Watching the snow and the lightning strikes, and feeling his mentor’s hand in his. He thinks back to her unshed tears.

‘’I think I saw her doubts,’’ Stephen murmurs. ‘’But seeing them and having them are two different things.’’

‘’You have your Sanctum to rely on,’’ Wong tells him, kindly placing a hand on his shoulder. ‘’So rely on us when you need to. It does not make you a bad Master – it makes you an honest one. And we need one, right now.’’

Stephen nods, and takes a deep breath. ‘’You’re right,’’ he says.

Wong smiles wryly. ‘’I usually am.’’

‘’Don’t get cocky.’’

‘’I’m not sure you, of all people, are allowed to say that.’’

Stephen grins.

~*~

‘’Hey, could you help me out for a second?’’ Tony casually says to one of the women behind the desks. She looks like a capable women, with her sharp brown eyes and tightly-knot curls. There’s two other people working, too, at the desks of Stark Tower; after all, Stark Industries has many offices and labs in here, and they’re the first line of defence, as one of the board members had called them.

Tony remembers scoffing at it. As if he couldn’t hold out anyone who wanted to intrude on his own property. Still, they had needed people downstairs anyway. Now, Tony is glad for the insistence. He’s not sure having an AI downstairs would have made it more or less difficult for him.

She blinks at him. ‘’Of course,’’ she says airily. ‘’What can I do for you?’’

She is named Clarissa, according to her nametag. Tony nods at it for a moment before turning back to her face. She looks somewhat suspicious towards him, and he can’t blame her. ‘’Read this for me,’’ Tony says, and holds out his phone for her, ‘’and tell me what you remember of this man.’’

‘’Tony Stark as Iron Man,’’ Clarissa reads out, peering at the article on his phone, ‘’secures another win for the Avengers. Tony Stark, famous superhero and former head of Stark Industries, assisted the Avengers under the lead of Steve Rogers once again last Wednesday on – what is this? This is months old.’’

‘’Not the point. Do you remember who he is?’’

‘’Never heard of him,’’ Clarissa says.

‘’Right,’’ Tony says, and bows forward in his excitement. ‘’It’s me. But everyone’s forgotten who I am, which, admittedly, is a bit of a conundrum for me. So now you see me, and you’ve read the article – no, it’s not a fake I wrote to troll you – and you still don’t remember. So everyone’s memories are locked way up inside, and even if you see me, you don’t get back any of the memories, as I thought. Even if we found a way to lift the curse, would anyone remember me, or just start forming new memories?’’

‘’You’re a madman,’’ she states, but she doesn’t press the alarm button, so Tony merely grins at her.

‘’I am, but not about this,’’ he admits. ‘’Who is Stark Industries named after, if not me? After my dad?’’

‘’Howard Stark,’’ Clarissa says, frowning. ‘’He left Stark Industries to Obadiah Stane, who named Pepper Potts as his inheritor.’’

‘’I should have some psychologists to look at this. Everyone is creating new, fake memories – did the curse do that, or is it just because there’s an unknown gap in your memory you’re trying to fill? The dates don’t match up, do they? Obadiah Stane was dead before Pepper became CEO. And why would the company be named after a man who’s been dead for decades? Oh, look at that. You’re starting to believe me, aren’t you?’’

Clarissa still looks sceptical, but there’s something worried in her gaze as well as she scrolls down something on her computer. ‘’I looked up your name,’’ she says. ‘’There’s – so much information here. So many sites – you can’t be lying, not with all of this online. So who are you?’’

‘’You already know,’’ Tony answers. ‘’I’m Tony Stark. I’ve just been forgotten by everyone in the world. I can’t recommend it, to be honest, zero out of five stars so far.’’

Her gaze turns to confused pity. ‘’All the proof that you exist is here online. Just show them, like you did to me.’’

Tony shrugs. ‘’You’ll have forgotten it ever existed soon. There’s no time for you to prove anything, because you’ll have forgotten you were ever proving anything. And even if you managed to do something, everyone else would forget about it. It’s online, and it’s real, and if I show it to anyone they’ll believe me – but it will last only seconds.’’

Clarissa is silent for a few moments. ‘’That must be tough,’’ she says, and her words echo the ones Tony has heard a dozen times already from everyone in the Sanctum. He thinks of Simeon in the kitchen, introducing himself time and again.

‘’I’ve been through worse,’’ he lies, and thinks he’d rather be in an Afghan cave for three more months than live through one more minute of this. But he doesn’t have a choice, and he doesn’t have a cure, and he doesn’t have anything he thought he’d always have. ‘’Well, thanks for helping, anyway.’’

‘’I didn’t do anything, Mr Stark,’’ she says, and it feels like it has been a decade since he’s heard his name spoken like that. He thinks of Peter, calling him just ‘Mister’ because he’d forgotten his name. He thinks of Pepper calling him ‘Mr Stark’ when she’d been nothing more than an employee – the only person he had – and calling her ‘Miss Potts’ in return as if he wouldn’t have torn out his heart to save hers.

He tries for a kind smile, but suspects he misses by a mile. ‘’You did more than you think,’’ he says, and walks away.

She’ll have forgotten about him within seconds, anyway.

~*~

Tony doesn’t know why he stays in the lobby after that. Maybe because there’s nowhere else in New York that is _his_ , the way the Tower is. His lab is the only place he can think of, but he’s not so disillusioned as to think he’ll get there.

He can almost see Clarissa forgetting about him as other people demand her time and attention, and within seconds, it’s as if Tony never walked up to her. Tony has long lost all hope on being remembered, and he only feels numb as he returns to one of the uncomfortable chairs. There’s nothing he can do to make people remember, but at least he can convince them that he’s not insane. That something real is happening to him, and that he still _exists_. If he can convince Clarissa, maybe he can convince Pepper. Just a few seconds to know –

But she won’t remember, and he shakes his head as if to rid himself of the idea. He needs to go back to the Sanctum and let Stephen find him a way to relieve him of his curse, but he loathes the idea of going back. Stephen will remember him, will remember what Tony said to him. 

He feels the surge of shame, as he thinks back on it. He’d had a bad day, and he’d taken it out on the one person who could help him – Stephen has only been kind and understanding, and Tony yelled at him. Now that he thinks on it, Stephen looked tired. Perhaps he wasn’t the only one having a bad day.

He stays there for a few hours, and it somehow is easier to think more objectively about the Sanctum and its inhabitants in the busy hall of Stark Tower. Tony lets himself catch the ends of conversations, feeling slightly more normal as he hears people wearing suits stressfully talk on their phones, businessmen discuss a new arrangement heatedly, and sees young scientists go on a break out of the Tower. The crowd ebbs and flows, and Tony finds himself watching Clarissa sometimes, animatedly waving her hands around during a phone call. 

That is, until he sees a tall man enter the building, touches of grey in his dark hair.

‘’I didn’t know you were allowed to wear suits,’’ is the first thing he says when the man stops in front of him.

Stephen Strange shrugs, and puts his hands in his pocket. The dark-grey suit looks very good on him, and he doesn’t stand out in the crowd. ‘’I’m the Sorcerer Supreme. I can get away with a lot.’’

‘’Like listening to Queen in an ancient library and wearing normal-people clothes?’’

‘’Exactly. Look, Tony –‘’

Tony stops him, looking up at him. ‘’No, wait – just. Sit here for a while?’’

Stephen blinks a moment, but then complies without a word. He sits down in the chair next to Tony, and watches the people pass by with him. Tony can feel himself relaxing, and looks over to the sorcerer after a few minutes. Stephen is focused on the passers-by, his eyes following one before settling on the next, and so on.

‘’I used to do this with my mother,’’ Stephen says eventually, but he doesn’t look at Tony. ‘’We’d sit on a bench in the park, and we’d just watch people. We would invent stories for them; what their job was, where they were going, that sort of thing.’’

‘’What happened?’’ Tony asks.

‘’I grew up. I became more interested in other things, and I didn’t want to spend time with my mother anymore. I was a very grumpy teenager – I think I never truly grew out of it. We weren’t rich, my family, and I vowed to make a lot of money when I grew up. Sometimes, I think that’s the reason I became a doctor in the first place. A nice pay-check every month for me to squander on things I didn’t need. And then I lost my family, and slowly I lost my place, and then I lost my hands, and it wasn’t money that I needed, all of a sudden, and I found something else.’’

Tony smiles wryly. ‘’Feels like a familiar story.’’

Stephen does look at him now. ‘’I am sorry for yelling at you, Tony. It’s not what you deserved, not by a long shot. Truth is, Minoru will try to help you, as I have. As I will continue to do, no matter what she does. I just can’t promise you that there is anything. I know it seems like we’re not doing everything that we can, right now –‘’

‘’I know you’re trying your best to help me,’’ Tony says.

Stephen looks pained. ‘’No, we’re not. We can’t afford to, right now – the thing is, we are having an internal issue in the Sanctum, but we’re not quite sure what it is. People have been steadily disappearing, and the Master of the London Sanctum is not a help, so it’s more or less fallen all to me to find out what is happening. I am not only the Master of the New York Sanctum, I’m also Sorcerer Supreme, and it’s enough of a job without other things interfering. So yes, I would like to help you to the best of my ability, but there’s not enough hours in a day for me to keep up with everything. And for that, I’m sorry.’’

Tony is silent for a while, mulling it over. ‘’That’s still trying your best,’’ he says. ‘’No, don’t interrupt me, Stephen. I know you’re trying. Just because there’s other things you need to do, doesn’t mean you’re not trying. I know there’s not exactly a deadline to my problem.’’

‘’The deadline is as soon as possible,’’ Stephen says wryly. ‘’I promised to help you, and I will. 

Tony nods. ‘’Maybe there’s something to do after all,’’ he says. ‘’I can’t solve my problem, but finding missing people – that’s something I can do. Facial recognition software isn’t a hard thing to develop, and I already have some experience with it. And, hey – the sooner you can figure out this problem, the sooner you’ll get back to mine, right? It’s a win-win scenario.’’

Stephen looks at him, his pale eyes lingering on Tony’s. ‘’That’d be extremely helpful,’’ he says slowly, and Tony grins at him.

‘’We should get back to the Sanctum, so we can get started as soon as possible,’’ he says, and they leave Stark Industries together. Tony feels as if a weight has been lifted from his shoulder, and everything feels easier than it has for months. Stephen leads him into a back-alley to create a portal back to the Sanctum for them, and they step through it together.

Tony’s relief immediately gets shattered to pieces when a few wizards run past them. 

Stephen, next to him, frowns and grabs the arm of one of them. ‘’What is going on?’’ he demands, as Master Chen turns to face him, his expression on his face a mix of fear and determination. 

‘’Don’t you know?’’ he says, confusion creeping into his voice. ‘’Someone just entered the Sanctum. We are under attack.’’

Stephen’s face hardens, and he lets go of Master Chen’s arm. ‘’Lock yourself in your room and stay safe,’’ he says to Tony. ‘’I will come find you when I’m done.’’

With that, he runs after the other sorcerers, already conjuring up a variety of bright-red spells, before Tony can say anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well, and we're back at the Sanctum! next chapter will give us some answers and some new questions. 
> 
> as always, comments bring me joy <3


	7. Chapter 7

Stephen runs with the other sorcerers. He arrives in the gardens, where others have already gathered. Wong is there already, but Stephen doesn’t see him until he pushes past everyone else to come to the middle of the circle. When he sees him, Wong looks up with a grim expression, his eyes dark.

‘’What happened?’’ Stephen demands. 

‘’We found someone we lost,’’ Wong answers wryly. ‘’Though his return wasn’t a happy homecoming, so to say.’’

‘’They attacked us!’’ Lydia Irwin says heatedly, one of the younger apprentices in the Sanctum. Murmurs rise, as the sorcerers start discussing amongst themselves what exactly happened.

‘’They opened portals here,’’ Master Chen says. ‘’But they weren’t only our missing sorcerers. There were five of them, but all were cloaked. I only recognized one of them by how he created a portal – I taught him that, that Derrick Price.’’

Everyone starts arguing again at that, and Stephen sighs, closing his eyes for a second. Even in the Sanctum, people are not above petty squabbling. ‘’Silence,’’ he says harshly. ‘’Everyone who actually saw anything can stay – everyone else, go back to what you were doing before. Everyone is still alright, so there is no reason to panic yet.’’

They go at that, with some huffs and doubts, but Stephen can’t deal with everything at the same time. It’s late in the evening, already, and he just wants to sleep. Only a few people stay; Wong, Master Chen, and three others. They tell him slowly what happened, so he gets a picture:

When he’d been out searching for Tony, five assailants, all talented in the Mystic Arts and with their faces hidden, entered the gardens with a portal. They attacked them with seemingly no reason, but had not expected the counterattack: they had fled soon, without managing to injure anyone seriously. One of the less experienced sorcerers has a burn on his arm, but it is only a minor inconvenience. The sorcerers had been vicious, though, and at least one of them had come from the New York Sanctum.

‘’So our missing sorcerers, they deserted? Why?’’ Stephen asks, frowning. ‘’They did not show any signs of discontentment, if I recall correctly.’’

‘’They didn’t,’’ Master Chen acknowledges, ‘’but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen. When Kaecilius formed his group, he took members we never expected would leave.’’

Wong nods slowly. ‘’That is true, but then, we had at least one radical member who convinced them. These three just left on their own; no extraordinary ties between them; all separately. If they were convinced to defect, it wasn’t by someone in the Sanctum.’’

Stephen nods. ‘’Thank you, Master Chen, sorcerers,’’ he says, and inclines his head to the four others standing in the garden. ‘’I will call for a meeting tomorrow. Please inform the other Masters – first, I think we all need a good night’s rest.’’

They leave, and then it’s only Wong and Stephen in the garden. It’s quiet, now, and it’s almost like nothing ever happened. Stephen turns to Wong, looking at him with discontent. 

‘’We can’t say it wasn’t anyone in the Sanctum,’’ Stephen says sharply. ‘’I don’t want to suspect it, but we can’t rule it out either.’’

Wong nods. ‘’I know. But I did not trust our other sorcerers to keep it to themselves. If someone in the Sanctum is not on our side, then we must maintain the appearances that they are. Both to keep the Sanctum in control, and to catch the defector more easily. If they know we suspect something, they’ll run.’’

Stephen frowns at him. ‘’It feels wrong to mistrust our own Sanctum. I know we can’t say anything for certain, but what are the chances someone did actually turn on us? Everything has been peaceful except for this.’’

‘’I did not want to show anyone else, but one of the intruders dropped this, and I believe it was meant for you as a threat,’’ Wong says, and he holds out a small piece of paper for Stephen to read, the dark ink contrasting harshly with the creamy colour of the paper.

_Do not interfere with Tony Stark._

Stephen looks up sharply. ‘’Someone knows about him,’’ he says.

Wong nods. ‘’And only the one who cursed Stark in the first place will remember him.’’

~*~

Tony wakes up with the sun warming his face. He frowns for a bit as he throws the covers off him; he must have fallen asleep. He remembers going upstairs, worrying about the attack there had been, and waiting up for news.

Master Haman appears at his door, peering inside without knocking. Tony would be annoyed, had he not known that the Sanctum isn’t as strict about privacy as he’s used to. Everyone continuously walks into every room, because they’re all part of one large family, in a way. It reminds him of the Avengers, in a way, only larger and more uniform. Everyone in the Sanctum is part of an ancient group of sorcerers, a group that most of them are proud to be part of. 

Besides, while Tony hasn’t talked with Master Haman that much, he still seemed like a nice guy. He is a thin and short Asian man, with wrinkles around his eyes and a quiet demeanour. He is one of the few Masters that could perform the spell that would allow him to remember Tony.

‘’Mr Stark?’’ he says, inclining his head. ‘’Master Strange has asked for you to join him for breakfast. He is in his personal rooms.’’

Tony blinks. ‘’Right,’’ he says, and scrambles around the room. ‘’Yeah, okay, I’m coming. Let me just get dressed.’’

Master Haman nods. ‘’Do you need to be escorted?’’

‘’That’s not necessary, but thanks.’’ With that, the Master leaves, and Tony is left to hurriedly dress himself and leaves for Stephen’s rooms. He’s still not overly familiar with the Sanctum with its long halls and endless amount of doors, but at least he knows how to find Stephen. It’d been a useful thing to know when Stephen didn’t remember him, either.

He leisurely walks the halls. Masters and apprentices alike pass him by, offering him curt nods. Most of them won’t remember him, but at least they don’t question his presence. Tony nods back at them, trying to look as friendly as possible. Even if they don’t know, he feels indebted to the Sanctum for taking him in, for continuing to help him even after his outburst.

Though his gratitude is better aimed at Stephen Strange, he thinks. 

The sorcerer in question is already eating in his private rooms, as Tony knocks on the door and enters. A second plate is on the table, still clean, clearly meant for Tony.

‘’I came to see you yesterday evening, but I thought it best to let you sleep,’’ Stephen explains to him, in lieu of a greeting. Tony sits down on the floor; no chairs, here. It feels more like a brunch on Sunday after sleeping in than anything else.

‘’So everything’s alright?’’ Tony asks. ‘’No one I saw looked upset.’’

Stephen smiles wryly, even as he offers Tony some bread. He takes it gratefully, buttering it up. ‘’Not exactly,’’ the sorcerer admits. ‘’I’m having a meeting with the other Masters soon. They did intrude, after all, and that’s a serious matter in any case. The thing is: I’m beginning to think that our problems are more related than we might’ve believed.’’

Tony frowns. ‘’Related?’’ he echoes. ‘’In what way?’’

Stephen holds out a note to him; creamy white parchment, with clear writing on it. It’s just one line, but it says enough.

_Do not interfere with Tony Stark._

‘’Only the one who cast the spell should remember you,’’ Stephen says, as Tony looks up to him. ‘’Or one of our own Masters wrote it, but I don’t think that’s it. In any case, whoever did this to you clearly knows you’re here, and they infiltrated the Sanctum yesterday. We don’t know what they wanted to achieve: my Masters scared them off before they could do whatever they came for.’’

It’s progress. It’s not much, but it’s some knowledge about what happened. ‘’So who are they? How are our two issues related?’’ Tony asks eagerly. 

Stephen shrugs. ‘’One of the five is a sorcerer that left our own Sanctum, a few weeks ago. So there’s at least some link here – I don’t know how important it is, but it’s suspicious enough anyway.’’

‘’I can still help,’’ Tony says. ‘’I’ll go crazy if I don’t. You said magic had traces, right? That it outputs energy, and in that energy, you can sense whose magic it is, and what the purpose is.’’

It’s enough to earn him a thoughtful frown from Stephen. ‘’In the roughest sense, yes,’’ Stephen allows.

Tony nods. ‘’So – isn’t there a device that would be able to sense that energy? If they come near here again, we could – I don’t know, trace their energy somehow? Their spells? Isn’t there a way we can find out if they’re using magic someplace else to find them?’’

‘’Theoretically, it could,’’ Stephen says. ‘’It’s never been done before – that would ask some vast knowledge of technology, biology and the Mystic Arts. And even then, it will be immensely difficult to build such a tracker. Besides, I don’t think there are traces left right now from the attack. Unless – Master Chen taught Derrick Price, the one he recognized yesterday. Perhaps he still has an artefact, anything that Derrick has enchanted before. We can follow him, and hope he leads us to the rest.’’

‘’And to the ones that cursed me,’’ Tony says, heart pounding. ‘’I can build a machine, I just need some help with the Mystic parts of this. If anyone can do this, it’s us, Stephen.’’

Stephen grimaces. ‘’I’ll try to help out where I can, but I’ll assign Master Chen to help you. He knows more about Derrick and his traces, and I can look for another way to find them. If we can find a way to stop them from attacking us another time, I’ll take it. They didn’t do any damage now, but who’s to say they won’t another time?’’

Tony doesn’t say that if Stephen stopped helping him, maybe he wouldn’t be attacked. After all, they left a note about him. He’s far too grateful to say anything at all; he just nods, and takes a bite from the bread. Stephen’s eyes are on him for a second too long, and then he looks away, an unreadable expression painted on his face.

‘’Finish your breakfast,’’ Stephen says, rising from the ground in one smooth motion. ‘’I will talk to the other Masters about the situation and the precautions we can take. You can go to the library, and I will inform Master Chen about your project and find you a room to start in. We do not have much in the way of technological devices in the Sanctum, but I expect you’ll be working only in theories for a while, and I can arrange something for you in a few days.’’

Tony nods. Time to dive back into the books, it seems. Maybe it’ll be easier, with Master Chen guiding him. At least he is finally starting to feel like he can be useful – like he can help. 

~*~

Stephen watches the Masters discuss, and doesn’t interrupt. His mind is full with circling thoughts; is one of them betraying the Sanctum? Can he withhold information from them, without knowing for certain one is? What will they even do? He doesn’t believe it, but he can’t deny the slight possibility.

He can feel Wong watching him from beside him. He hasn’t informed the other Masters of the cause of the attack, if Tony’s presence is indeed the cause. Stephen has a tingling feeling that’s not all to it; if someone had wanted to harm him, or Tony, for that matter, there are simpler ways of doing it. It feels like a decoy, like a misdirection. Stephen doesn’t know anything for certain, and he can’t find out.

With Kaecilius, things had been hazy and confused in whole another way. Stephen was new, then, did not know magic or its power – but Kaecilius’ goals were clear and the mysteries presented themselves soon enough. Now, Stephen doesn’t know what path to take – too many things are shrouded, still, and he can sense the shadows hanging over him. Tony is part of it, he’s sure of it, but he doesn’t know why, or what exactly the goal of his curse is. Is it about Tony, or is something larger at play?

Stephen doesn’t know, and he has never been able to bear that well.

There are only six masters in the Sanctum – all of them know who Tony is, as the last one, a potions Master, managed to spell herself in the end as well. Besides himself and Wong, there’s Master Chen, Master Haman, and Master Brown. The potions master is Master Moretti, a petite Italian woman who looks unhappier with the minute.

‘’There is hardly anything we can do without knowing who attacked us!’’ she says, just when Stephen wants to cut off the other Masters. ‘’Just knowing Derrick Price was among them doesn’t tell us anything.’’

‘’You are right,’’ Stephen says. ‘’We can strengthen our defensive spells, and we can make sure that only those we know are able to enter. But there isn’t much more for it – Derrick knows many of our spells, and he will know how to counteract them. We will have to go on the offensive to protect the Sanctum – we have to find who did this, and then strike back.’’

‘’But how do we find them?’’ Master Brown asks.

Stephen looks her in the eye. ‘’Like you find all things. Searching.’’

~*~

Finding someone with the Mystic Arts is just like finding anyone in the ordinary way. You search, and sometimes you search the wrong places, and you keep searching until you find the right one.

Unless, of course, Stephen reflects, Tony’s invention will work. It hasn’t been done before: most Masters of the Mystic Arts don’t mingle with science, and the few men of science who have become a Master have usually dropped all connections to their previous careers. Stephen is one of the few who hasn’t, but even though he was a brilliant neurosurgeon, technology isn’t really his specialty. Tony may very well be the only one who can even pull of something like this.

He knows Master Chen is uncertain, when he tells him of the plan, but he hasn’t seen what Stephen has; the gleaming Iron Man suit in the sky, ruthlessly attacking with a fierce strength that stems from technology and the steel mind beneath the suit. Tony is the most capable inventor of their time, and Stephen desperately needs his help, even if he won’t admit that much.

The Sanctum has always survived and thrived because of its own Masters, but times change, and so must they. Stephen isn’t the Ancient One; their enemies are cunning, and their plan unknown. If he wants to find the sorcerers they face without combing through the entire planet, they need to come up with something new.

There are spells for things like these, Stephen knows. Spells for finding hidden things, hidden persons. Spells for finding what’s lost. But they take a lot of effort, and if they sense his magic, they’ll hide somewhere else. Besides, they’re often complicated if you’re not exactly sure what you’re looking for, and there are ample spells to counter his locating spell. Stephen doesn’t doubt the sorcerers will be hiding their presence, making it impossible to find them even with a locating spell. They’re too organized, and they’re still one step ahead of him. Still, there is no harm in trying.

He sends Master Chen on his way to assist Tony, locks his private rooms, sits down in the middle, and closes his eyes.

~*~

The situation reminds Tony more of his days in MIT than anything else. It’s odd to feel like a student again; he graduated what feels like a lifetime ago, Rhodey by his side and no parents in the applauding audience as he got his degree summa cum laude at the young age of seventeen. He’d felt all alone back then, with only Dum-E and an ambitious pilot in his life. Everyone knew him, and no one had known him.

Back then, Tony didn’t do much in the way of studying. Most of his time went by partying with people that only pretended to not want him to buy them stuff, sleeping with girls that pretended to be into him, and doing drugs with boys that were years older and that pretended to be his friends. Lots of pretending; Tony has gotten used to it, and now it feels almost unnatural to have no one fawning over him. He doesn’t miss that part.

Rhodey studied with him sometimes, pressing him to use his mind for greater things. Tony listened to him only sometimes, seventeen and pretending to be on top of the world. He built Dum-E, and he built lots of other stuff; MIT is where he’d started sketching out his first AI, the AI that would turn out to be JARVIS. Tony took over labs, sometimes, when he didn’t feel like pretending. His father paid the school enough for him to commandeer entire parts of it, and it’s not like anyone ever told him no. So Tony invented, and worked, and studied when he wanted to lock himself out. Sometimes, he’d had five or six books laying out in front of him as he read and combined and became lost in his own mind; and that’s what this is, too. 

There are seven books on the Mystic Arts before him, all containing information on the magic traces and energy outputs and tracing people and finding hidden things. Tony skims over every page, his mind racing with a speed his eyes can barely keep up with. Some of the books are much more technical than he’d expect, with formulas and mathematical theories in them; others are more of the vague soul-searching stuff that he can’t wrap his head around.

It’s a mix of magic, technology and biochemistry. The first two he has at his disposal, in the Sanctum; it’s the third he’s not sure about. Stephen is a doctor, certainly, but biology isn’t the same as biochemistry. He knows exactly who he needs for that kind of knowledge: Bruce Banner.

But Bruce doesn’t remember who he is. Tony chews on the end of his pencil before he puts a note in the margin of one of the more scientific books, editing the formula. He thinks it’d work, but he needs Bruce to be sure – one of the many persons who he can’t ask to help. He’ll have to do it by himself, then.

He barely looks up as someone enters, as he mumbles terms and principles under his breath, turning pages. 

‘’Mr Stark?’’ someone says, and Tony looks up in the face of a somewhat irritated Master Chen. He gets the distinct feeling the man has called his name a few times before.

‘’Master Chen,’’ he says.

Chen nods his head at him, and then looks at the books before him, frowning. ‘’Are you _writing_ in these?’’ he asks in horror.

Tony drops his pencil. ‘’No?’’

~*~

The days pass by slowly, and Stephen slowly eases back into something more relaxed than he managed to be before. He spends much time by himself, muttering ancient spells for locating people; but nothing he does seems to get the job done. The whereabouts of their attackers remain hidden to his sight, just like he expected. Stephen can feel the tension draining from the Sanctum as things return to normal.

His duties are still as usual, though Wong and Master Haman have taken over some of his teaching duties. Stephen doesn’t consider himself a great teacher, but it is the responsibility of the Master of the Sanctum to assist those in learning. Still – he thinks most prefer Haman’s teaching methods anyway, which is of course why he is mainly the teacher anyway. Everything comes too easily to Stephen to be able to explain to others why something should be so – it always makes sense to him, and he remembers everything he reads and learns with ease. He sometimes forgets that not everyone’s brain works like that, and then he stumbles over explanations on details that are foregone conclusions to him. 

No, best leave the teaching to others more inclined that way. At least, until Stephen has solved the problems of their attackers and Tony’s curse. The Masters still don’t know the two are connected, and he feels a pang of guilt at that.

So Stephen passes his days, only answering the direst of questions from his Masters and pupils, pouring over old texts, muttering tracking spells and making sure the Sanctum’s shield holds up. He doesn’t have much time to talk, and he only sees Tony once, debating over magic with Master Chen with a fierce vibrancy Stephen hasn’t seen from him before. It suits him, in a way, but that’s all Stephen sees of him. He doesn’t see much of Wong, either, busy as they both are. He marks the goings of creatures of interest, but it feels as if everything is eerily calm. 

He feels uneasy, and the feeling only grows until he gets a message from Master Minoru.

_I found something that might be interesting. Bring your cursed protégée to the Hong Kong Sanctum – may be able to help._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 8 coming next week, in which we're seeing Master Minoru, the Hong Kong Sanctum, and some unexpected problems. Hope everyone enjoyed this chapter :)


	8. Chapter 8

Tony stands with his hands in his pockets and feels a bit awkward as the short woman examines him thoughtfully. There’s a handful of notes surrounding her, reminding her of Tony’s situation. It makes him think of when Stephen was figuring out his counter-spell; she must’ve forgotten an awful lot of times, because the notes are everywhere. Stephen hasn’t explained much of what is going on, only said that Master Minoru asked for him to come and cracked a joke about if Tony’s Cantonese was up to speed.

It’s probably not. Tony is fluent in a number of languages, but he’s always communicated in either Mandarin or English with any Chinese people he’s come across. Though it seems he was only joking: Minoru greeted them in perfect English, counter-spelled herself against Tony’s curse – which still doesn’t feel pleasant, unfortunately – and is now examining him with a rough efficiency he is not used to from many people.

If remembering him surprises her, she does not show it. She is waving her hands in his general direction, and Tony doesn’t know what she sees, except for some orange light coming from his skin as she goes on. It mixes with the blue light of his arc reactor, creating a spooky atmosphere. They’re only in a small room, the light reflecting on the dark walls. Stephen and Wong are there, too, silently watching the proceedings from the side. Any time Tony looks over at them, he can feel Stephen’s eyes pierce into him.

‘’What’s the verdict?’’ he says lightly when Minoru stops. Her expression is unreadable, even as she looks him up and down. 

‘’I have found an account of a case similar to yours,’’ Minoru says, taking a step back. Her smooth black hair waves over her shoulders. ‘’But it seems, not entirely the same. I had hoped – but that won’t work.’’

‘’So you can’t help?’’ Stephen says, his voice sharp. ‘’What case is this?’’

Minoru turns to him. ‘’It was written up eighty years ago,’’ she answers. ‘’A woman who claimed to be forgotten by her loved ones. But it’s not the same – her energy wasn’t directed outwards, and the curse stole her reserves until she could do little but lie abed. It’s a similar spell, but it’s not the same one. You are still perfectly healthy, aren’t you?’’ She directs the last question at Tony, who blinks.

‘’Yeah, same as ever.’’

‘’I thought so,’’ Minoru says curtly. ‘’Still, it does not mean I cannot help.’’

‘’You fixed the other woman? You figured out how to undo her curse?’’ Tony asks eagerly, his eyes shining with newfound hope. 

Minoru shakes her head, looking at him with some pity. ‘’You do not understand. We didn’t. The Sanctum tried to offer her aid and relief, and they searched for a cure. Nothing was found in time, and she took her own life in the end.’’

The room is silent for a moment, and Tony mulls it over. ‘’But you can help?’’ he asks tentatively. 

Minoru and Stephen exchange a glance, as if discussing it amongst themselves. ‘’I can try,’’ Minoru says, ‘’but I will not promise you anything. There were more Masters in this Sanctum eighty years ago than there are today, and fewer books were lost to time, fire and decay. If it is in my power, I will help.’’

‘’Thank you, Master Minoru,’’ Stephen says, inclining his head to her. ‘’It’s a generous and helpful offer.’’

Minoru’s lips twitch in good humour. ‘’I have a feeling that Master Wright has proven less helpful? Don’t judge him too harshly – I know he is unreliable as of now, but that might improve as his health progresses. He is a very gifted Master, and he may prove himself of tremendous use. Not unlike you, Master Strange.’’

‘’Unreliable is one word for it,’’ Stephen says, clearly annoyed. Tony wonders what experiences the sorcerer has had with the other Master, exactly. ‘’Recuperating from one’s illness is one thing, but his uncooperativeness in other matters is something else entirely.’’

Minoru shrugs. ‘’At least he’s not out of communication right now, as he was when he was – ill. I must admit, he did have a hard time healing, initially. I came to help him out, myself.’’

Stephen frowns at her. ‘’I did not know that. What illness was it, anyway? I am a doctor, after all.’’

She smiles kindly at him, and turns away. ‘’I’m not sure it’s my place to say,’’ she says. ‘’It doesn’t matter, now – Wright is close to being healthy enough to return to all his duties, and he will be a fine ally to you when he’s back to normal, Master Strange. We Masters must stand together, after all.’’

‘’Agreed,’’ Stephen says, and then his eyes rest on Tony again, who’s been standing there silently for a while. He feels slightly uncomfortable, and shifts where he stands, scraping his throat.

‘’So, what now?’’ he says, and then all three pairs of eyes are aimed at him.

~*~

It still feels unreal, as Tony allows himself to be led to his new guest chambers by Master Minoru. Stephen and Wong have left, and Tony is still here, in Hong Kong. It’s easier, in the long run; still, Tony feels somewhat lonely. He has gotten used to Stephen’s presence, calmly reading beside him in the library as he plays Queen somewhere in the back. He’s gotten used to Wong, too, and his research with Master Chen and even to some of the others in the Sanctum, the ones who don’t remember him. He remembers them, though – and honestly, he’s going to miss it.

But Stephen is too busy to handle Tony, and Minoru has promised to help him. Besides, it may not be the worst thing to be away from New York for a while. 

So he follows Minoru, as she leads him to a small chamber in the north wing of the Hong Kong Sanctum. There’s a hallway full of rooms; there’s more of them than in the New York Sanctum, but they’re also smaller. The bed is old and used, and it creaks dangerously when Tony sits on it carefully. Minoru just smiles. 

‘’I’m sure you’re used to better,’’ she says, standing in the door opening. Tony puts the small bag of belongings down. There’s not a lot in it; he only has the phone and the laptop given to him by Stephen, and two of the books he was studying with Master Chen. Stephen assured him there would be other Masters to work with in the Hong Kong Sanctum, and Tony tries to look forward to fresh knowledge.

‘’It’s fine,’’ he says. ‘’I mean, I’m sure I can crank up the bed so that it won’t creak anymore, and I have everything I need here. The Wi-Fi here is better than at the New York Sanctum, you can be sure about that.’’

She smiles at him. ‘’You’re an optimist. I admire that.’’

Tony tries to smile back. It’s only years of pretending that makes his lips tilt upwards, and he’s sure it still looks self-deprecating. ‘’Yeah, well.’’

He doesn’t say that the optimism is all he has left from his old life, now. There’s no point in saying it; Minoru offers him a knowing nod, and then leaves him to it.

~*~

‘’She will be able to help him,’’ Wong tells him.

Stephen looks back, though the portal is long gone, the orange sparks having disappeared in the blink of an eye. ‘’I know,’’ he says. He does know.

It doesn’t mean the library doesn’t feel a bit emptier, as he sees the abandoned books on a desk.

~*~

There are only two Masters in the Hong Kong Sanctum, besides Minoru, that learn the counter-spell. Tony smiles at them, trying to thank them. One of them is an old, tall man with glittering eyes, but he doesn’t speak a word of English. When Tony tries to greet him in Mandarin instead, the man starts talking gibberish at him. Perhaps it’s Cantonese. 

The other is a man of about sixty who seems utterly chagrined to be helping Tony, and doesn’t say a word to him. He leaves immediately after it’s done, but Minoru doesn’t seem bothered by it and doesn’t make an attempt to let them meet Tony. 

‘’Right,’’ Tony say. ‘’Are there so few Masters, or is the counter-spell just very difficult? Stephen didn’t make it look so hard, but you know, I’m hardly a verified expert, even if I’ve done some research. How _does_ it work, exactly?’’

Minoru’s face smoothens, and Tony already has understood that’s the equivalent of a smile for her. ‘’The number of Masters has dropped,’’ she acknowledges, ‘’but it’s mainly that very few Masters here do have the time to come now. This is Master Zhao – he is the librarian of my Sanctum. He only speaks Cantonese and a little bit of Hindi. He’s had quite the life behind him, and prefers quiet.’’

‘’I doubt I’m that good of a companion, in that case,’’ Tony says. He’s well aware of his own habit to run his mouth.

‘’As for your other question,’’ she continues as if he hasn’t interrupted at all, which only serves to prove his point, ‘’yes, the spell is complicated. It’s quite an ingenious spell, and Master Strange has been very nifty to create it out of the original spell. Usually, for counter-spells, we use a completely different spell to reduce the effects. Still, perhaps that’s why we can’t undo your spell – we’re not sure what it even is.’’

‘’Something to do with energy output and traces, right?’’ Tony presses.

She glances at him. ‘’You’ve been studying, I see,’’ she says dryly. ‘’Yes, those are aspects that are unusual in your spell. You’re extremely well-known; the spell exerts an enormous energy to keep everyone unaware of your existence and to repress their memories. That energy output by itself is a enough of a danger: certain mystical creatures are drawn to it, and you output enough mystical energy for smaller threats to try and lure you in.’’

Tony blinks, and looks between her and Master Zhao. ‘’Mystical creatures?’’ he repeats faintly. ‘’What, like, unicorns? Dragons? Nymphs?’’

‘’Nothing quite like that. There are many unnamed threats, and it’s our job to keep them away. You’re safe in the Sanctums, and it’s likely you’ll be fine either way in any of the cities that the Sanctums are protecting, too. Beyond that, I wouldn’t go, just to be sure, though many of these threats don’t exist anymore.’’

‘’Well,’’ he says, suddenly wishing he had his suit. It’s still somewhere in Avengers Compound; he wonders if the Avengers have found his lab, or if it is too linked with him and they’ve forgotten it ever existed. ‘’That doesn’t sound ominous at all.’’

‘’I was hoping you’d think so,’’ Minoru says, and she starts leading him out of the room. Or rather, she walks away, and Tony follows, Master Zhao by his side. ‘’Do not worry. To attract something more dangerous, your energy emission should be much higher, and it’s not coming to that. In the cases of smaller curses, we find a way to destroy the energy, if we can’t find the person who put the spell on you, or if the one who cast it is already dead. It’s not a favourable method, not even for the smallest spells; any creature who can destroy energy, even the smallest amount, is tremendously dangerous, and incredibly rare. So we find counteractive spells – potions, charms, incantations, anything that can undo the effects.’’

‘’But won’t that mean you’re still cursed, effectively?’’ Tony asks. ‘’If you’re just undoing the effects, you’re not curing the curse.’’

She raises her eyebrows at him. ‘’I knew you were sharp,’’ she says, and it sounds approving. ‘’You are right – in some cases, that’s true, but often we only battle effects anyway. A spell is not harmful in and of itself, but its effects are. In your case, that might be less true, considering your energy output. You’d still be unable to leave any Sanctum-governed city, even if we found a cure.’’

‘’At this point, I’d already be happy with that,’’ Tony says wryly. He would stay in New York for the rest of his life if it meant getting back Pepper, Rhodey and Peter. If it meant getting back the Avengers, and Happy, and to be able to invent his heart out for Stark Industries. It’s hard to even care about travelling at this point, though – well, he couldn’t fly like he used to, anymore. Not as mindlessly and joyfully as he used to, sailing through the air in the Iron Man suit. 

Minoru doesn’t look at him, and that makes it slightly better. ‘’I don’t doubt that. Still, you’d pose a threat for us as Sanctum, and that’s always something we try to avoid. No, truth to be told – we either need to find whoever cursed you and find a way to make them undo it, or find a cure ourselves.’’

Tony looks at her. ‘’What if you do find who did it, and they don’t feel like sharing?’’ he asks. Master Zhao starts humming something that sounds suspiciously like a lullaby of some sort.

‘’Here is the library,’’ Minoru says, opening the huge doors. ‘’Master Zhao has his ways of finding whatever you need. I will be in my study.’’

With that, she disappears. Tony stares after her for a long while as she strides away. Master Minoru seems like a capable and decent woman, but he knows well enough why she didn’t answer his question. She has ways of making people talk, but they’re not anything he would approve of, he thinks.

Maybe she’s right to use them, but Tony has seen his fair share of immoral events, and his hands are still – forever – tainted with blood he can’t ever scrub off. If whoever did this to him will be found and won’t give up the curse, he is certain she will resort to more vicious ways. She is capable and sharp, with her own set of morals, and Tony feels uneasy. 

He wonders what the price of lifting his curse will be, and if lifting it is even something that can be done.

If it’ll be worth the price.

~*~

Tony has traded in Stephen’s sassiness and his humming of various Queen songs for Master Zhao’s incoherent babbling and his tendency to suddenly start singing a Cantonese lullaby out of the blue. Tony can quietly sing along after the third time, and Zhao’s eyes glitter at him the first time he does so. Tony starts to wonder if Minoru was being sarcastic when she’d said that the Master was a lover of peace and quiet. It certainly doesn’t seem like Master Zhao actually enjoys the silence, but it suits Tony just as well. He responds to Zhao’s gibberish with answers, and it’s actually much like working with Dum-E.

Damn, he misses his robot helpers.

Minoru certainly spoke the truth when she’d said that Zhao would find him anything he needed, though; Tony’s not sure how he knows it, but after only twenty minutes, he has four books on various methods of locating spells and finding traces.

‘’You’re a real help, you know that?’’ he tells the man, just in case he does understand something of what Tony’s saying. Just because Master Zhao doesn’t speak English doesn’t mean Tony can’t thank him.

Three of the books are in Mandarin, and one is in Cantonese, but with a bit of Google Translate and a few other apps Tony makes considerable progress. Slowly, he starts reading. It won’t solve all of his problems, but it may just help him solve Stephen’s, and make Stephen solve his.

Win-win situations, right?

~*~

It starts feeling less like win-win as the days pass. In the New York Sanctum, Tony had Stephen, Wong and even to a certain degree Master Chen who looked out for him, despite their arguments. People he could talk to, discuss matters with. He had his work with Master Chen, and he had English books and manuscripts and the tiny room that was actually his, and he had his note from Stephen to pass by everyone.

In the Hong Kong Sanctum, Tony can only talk to Minoru, and she doesn’t seem to have much time for conversation. On Stephen’s busier days, he’d locked himself up and Tony hadn’t seen him for days on end; for Minoru, this seems par for the course. As far as Tony has seen, the Hong Kong Sanctum is slightly bigger, but it’s still ridiculous how little he sees of the Master.

He doesn’t see the other Master that remembers him anymore, so Tony’s only steadfast companion is Master Zhao, who starts making less sense each time he sees him.

‘’Listen up,’’ Tony tells him after eight days in the library. ‘’This isn’t working. I need people who know more about magic, who can actually practise it, instead of me reading all this. I think I got down the basic notions on traces and locating spells; but how it all works in practice, and how we’re going to make a machine pick up on it? I need a sorcerer to get an idea for that. Any thoughts?’’

Master Zhao only looks at him, smiling kindly and nodding.

‘’Good idea,’’ Tony says to him, tilting his head. ‘’But we can’t do that unless I have someone who knows English and wants to work with me. Someone who knows how this works, too. In fact, I think there would be more chance of me doing this in the New York Sanctum. At least everyone knows English there.’’

Zhao frowns and mutters something in Cantonese. Tony nods. ‘’You’re right. There’s enough people here who speak English, I just have to find them. But they won’t remember me, so that’s a problem.’’

The Master nods and points to the door. Tony looks at the wooden doors, looming. ‘’That could work,’’ he muses. ‘’You can convince them, and they’ll remember you. Right – okay, so we’ll go find someone to help with this stuff, and then we’ll grab some food?’’

Zhao sings the first note of the lullaby and crosses his arms.

Tony grins. ‘’I know you’re hungry, old man. Let’s hurry up, then.’’

~*~

Everything happens too fast for Tony to wrap his head around, after that; one second he’s with Zhao, but the Master spots someone and gets into a conversation with him with a rapidness of speech that leaves Tony almost dizzy. He takes a few steps back to admire the beautiful tapestries on the Sanctum’s walls, and before he knows it, Zhao and his companion are gone. 

He blinks, but he knows where to find the kitchens by now. Getting food without someone to remember him and without a note to explain his situation is something he’s growing used to; sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but Tony has always eaten sparingly, and it’s not anything he can’t handle.

Still, he should probably ask a note from Minoru the next time he sees her. Preferably one in Cantonese, too. He’s whistling as he walks down the halls, his voice and footsteps echoing in the otherwise empty space.

Until another pair of footsteps comes. Tony stops whistling to see who’s there; it’s an unfamiliar young man. His head is shaven clean, and he is tall and broad. Still, he wears the traditional clothing of the Sanctum, and Tony smiles at him when he sees him. ‘’Hi there,’’ he says cheerfully. 

‘’Why are you here?’’ the man says, his voice low and threatening. Tony keeps the smile on his face; he’s been threatened by bigger and more dangerous. He’s a guest, here, and the Sanctum is a safe place to him. Stephen promised it, and Tony believes him.

But this isn’t the New York Sanctum, and Stephen isn’t here.

‘’I was just on my way to the kitchen,’’ Tony offers. ‘’It’s meatball day. On the other hand, they didn’t have meatballs last time. Is that not a thing you guys have in Hong Kong?’’

The man doesn’t smile. ‘’You talk too much.’’

‘’Believe me, it’s not the first time I hear that.’’

‘’What have you come to steal?’’ the man demands, and comes closer. Tony takes a step back involuntarily.

‘’I haven’t come to steal anything,’’ he protests. 

The man inches ever closer, and Tony fervently wishes he had his suit with him. He can throw a punch well enough to get him out of some tight spots, but this guy is a sorcerer, and he doesn’t hold himself like an apprentice. ‘’You’re not one of us,’’ he says, and Tony takes another step back, and feels his back press against the wall.

He needs to get away. He needs to get the man to focus on something other than him for only a few seconds, and he can flee without the guy even remembering him. ‘’I’m a guest,’’ he tries.

‘’Then why do you have one of our tomes?’’ 

Tony looks down. He didn’t even notice that he is brought along one of the books; unconscious, he’s been clasping it tightly, and he lets it fall down to the ground. The man offers him a crooked smile, Tony manages to duck away from his first punch and counters with a low kick. He doesn’t even get a yelp in response, and also doesn’t manage to avoid the hard blow in his stomach.

Tony wheezes, but straightens himself out and aims at the man’s temple with his fist. The young guy ducks, and Tony only barely hits him. He doesn’t seem much disabled; he immediately responds by swiping Tony’s legs from under him and kicking him square in the face. Tony sinks down the wall and falls to the ground, the cold tiles chafing his elbows. Before he can even try to get up, he hears the man mutter a word.

He doesn’t know anything else until he wakes up in a small cold room with a locked door, blood streaming down from his face onto the stone floor.

He’s been locked up –

and no one is going to remember he’s here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost forgot it was a Wednesday, oops. I've got some news for you guys: I've almost finished writing, and I think I'll need about 2-3 weeks more to finish up the entire thing and edit it. After that, I want to start updating twice a week. Isn't that fun?


	9. Chapter 9

He’s sitting in a small room, his fingers touching the ground. It’s all he feels, as he sits with his eyes closed; breathing in, breathing out.

He’s going about this the wrong way, he’s sure about it. He would have found a solution much earlier if it’d been as easy as this.

Stephen opens his eyes again, taking in his private room in the Sanctum. There’s a dead cactus in the corner; he grimaces at it. He’s not good with plants, but he’d hoped to keep alive something as self-regulating as a cactus. Wong will be disappointed in him.

‘’Right,’’ he mutters to himself. ‘’We can’t find Derrick Price – we can’t find any hiding spot. There is no use in tracking any magic in the city, and no one that we don’t know can teleport into the Sanctum. They have a connection to Tony’s curse. Perhaps it’s time to start reasoning from another angle. Does Tony have any magical enemies? One that’s powerful enough to know we’re helping him?’’

Stephen doesn’t know – it’s not something they have talked about in detail. He imagines Tony would have said something if he had an idea, but it’s not as easily dismissible as all that. Tony knows enough about the traces by now that he knows it’s important to know who cast a curse, but just because he’s not sure doesn’t mean he can’t have any suspicions. It’s plausible enough for him to have offended any magic user – an Avenger and a successful businessman is sure enough to have many enemies in the world.

A powerful magic user at that, one that could possibly spy on the Sanctum and be prepared to infiltrate it. He doesn’t think it’s Derrick Price who is the mastermind behind that.

It’s an idea, at least, and at this point, Stephen is desperate enough to follow any possible lead. He almost wants to go down to Tony’s room before he remembers that he’s been in the Hong Kong Sanctum for over a week now; the New York Sanctum quickly returned to normal in the man’s absence.

Not that Stephen minded Tony’s presence, of course. It was enjoyable, in a way, to have some company in the early mornings. A quick mind to sharpen his own, and a sarcastic humour to match Stephen’s dry one.

He sighs. He’ll have to pay a visit to the Hong Kong Sanctum soon.

But first, there are some other things he ought to do.

~*~

Tony leans against the wall. He’s only wearing a thin shirt, and the low temperature of the cell causes him to shiver. There’s no windows and he didn’t bring his phone – he doesn’t even wear a watch anymore, so he has no way of knowing how long he’s been here.

His stomach is protesting against the time gone without food and drink, anyway. He thinks it’s been just over a day, maybe a little more. His throat is dry and his head hurts. He’s not sure it’s because of dehydration or because of the fact that his temple feels bruised. His nose still throbs, and his ribs have gone a lovely shade of blue and purple. All in all, he’s not in a good mood.

The door is a thick kind of wood, reverberating when Tony bangs his fists against it. ‘’Hey there!’’ he shouts out again with a hoarse voice, but he doesn’t know where he is. Maybe it’s a part of the Sanctum that doesn’t get frequented often; it’s cool and damp enough for this part of the building to be vastly uncomfortable. Still, someone has to come here sometimes. It’s just a matter of when, exactly.

Or if someone thinks to go searching for him. Tony’s hope lies mainly in Master Zhao; surely he would notice Tony missing? On the other hand, Zhao can’t know what he’s doing. They barely understand one another, so maybe he just thinks Tony is doing something else. It wouldn’t be the first time he stayed away a little longer from the library, though he’s spent most of the time there.

Maybe Minoru, then. She does check up on him occasionally. 

Tony can feel his hope wavering. He starts banging again. Even if anyone hears him, they’ll forget they ever heard him after a few seconds. That’s why he continues for ten minutes straight, shouting his voice away and bruising his fists.

‘’Fuck,’’ Tony mutters after, sliding down the wall again. ‘’Shit. What am I going to do?’’

He needs water, at least, and he really needs to pee, too. 

There’s nothing for it. He sits in his corner, closes his eyes, and falls asleep.

~*~

Stephen has never been one to be overly cautious, but the fact that he feels that shielding all the entrances to the Sanctum isn’t even that bad says enough about the situation. He puts spells on the windows, the doors, everything; no one will be able to look into the Sanctum, at least. He’s not sure how much good it will do to stop people spying in, but it’s better than nothing, and it’s nothing the former Masters busied themselves with.

He puts protective spells all over the place, warning them for intruders – at least if someone finds their way into the Sanctum again, they’ll be more aware of it than the last time. There’s not much he can do to stop anyone with access to the Mystic Arts from actually coming in, despite blocking the portals, and he tries not to let it bother him. They still have powerful Masters, people who will defend their home. The Sanctum won’t fall easily, and if Stephen has a say in it, it won’t fall at all.

Wong is in the library, using the small speaker to blast Beyoncé and quietly singing along. Stephen shakes his head before going in; Wong looks up without any shame, just shrugging at the Sorcerer Supreme. 

‘’I’m not sure there’s anything else we can do about the intruders,’’ Stephen says.

Wong stands up, shutting of the music before he turns to him. ‘’If they attack again, we will be ready,’’ his friend says wisely. ‘’They have lost the element of surprise, and we are prepared. They have given away their hand.’’

‘’In a way,’’ Stephen acknowledges. ‘’Still, we’re not sure who they are and what their goal is.’’

Wong nods. ‘’I would tell you to leave it be, had it not been connected to the curse,’’ he says. ‘’Many smaller groups fall apart soon, and what seems to be a threat at first can come apart easily. Now, it is not so easy, and many things remain hidden.’’

‘’It worries me,’’ Stephen says.

Wong nods – he is more aware than most of the pressures that lie on a new Sorcerer Supreme. Stephen couldn’t be more grateful for his support. ‘’There is not much we can do but wait. None of the tracking spells have found anything, and everything we’ve tried to find has led to nothing.’’

Stephen bites his lip and looks to the corner Tony used to sit. The books he was reading have been put away already, undoubtedly Wong’s work. Still – if anyone could pull it off, it would be Tony Stark.

‘’If Tony’s device works,’’ Stephen says, ‘’it would be a huge advantage.’’

‘’We can’t assume it will work,’’ Wong tells him. ‘’Stark barely knows the first thing about the Mystic Arts.’’

‘’Neither did I, when I came here. I managed to learn soon enough.’’

‘’You were predisposed to it. There’s not a single bone in Stark’s body that’s made for magic. He simply won’t be able to work out how to make a device track magic.’’

Stephen grins. ‘’Maybe not,’’ he answers. ‘’But maybe we can.’’

~*~

Tony’s nose starts bleeding again, and he wakes up with the sticky substance clinging to his cheeks and beard. His bruises ache, and it’s hard to speak, with the way his throat is aching. No one has come; no one remembers him, and the quiet desperation really starts to set in.

He relieves himself in the corner, thinking back on Afghanistan wryly. He had never imagined any imprisoning would ever be quite as bad; he’d faced torture, threats, life-threatening surgeries without the proper medicine. He’d left part of himself there, and after coming back, he thought there was nothing worse he could face.

He’s faced some things, after, that still leave him reeling with nightmares, but never had he believed that he would _miss_ his captors actually remembering him. In Afghanistan, the Ten Rings tortured and abused him, but he had value of some sort, no matter how wrong it all was. Now, he’s thrown in a cold jail, forgotten by everyone that can offer him some help. He has nothing to break himself out with, and once again, he misses his suit. 

‘’Iron Man,’’ he tells himself self-deprecatingly. ‘’What good does it do you now, huh?’’

So he waits, and he aches, and he hopes that someone will think to look for him.

~*~

‘’Master Wright,’’ Stephen says pleasantly, greeting the man standing before him. Alexander Wright is still pale and lean, but he seems better than the last time they met. There’s a sharper look in his eyes, and an easier smile on his face. ‘’What brings you to my Sanctum?’’

‘’Master Strange,’’ Wright says, inclining his head. ‘’I feared I haven’t made the best of impressions. I do not mean to get off on the wrong foot with you, Master. I respect you greatly, of course, and I want nothing more than to assist in our shared issue. I heard your Sanctum was attacked?’’

He irks Stephen somewhat, but Wright is right. The Masters of the Sanctum should get along, and they should assist each other. ‘’Not so much attacked as infiltrated,’’ he says, trying to go for polite. ‘’No one was injured, and they left soon.’’

‘’Of course.’’ Wright nods sagely, as if that’s exactly what he heard. ‘’I only came to tell you that you can count on my assistance in any matter, Master Strange.’’

Stephen looks at him, really looks; Wright looks pleasant enough, the magenta of his clothes matching very well with his dark blue eyes, making both stand out. With his blond hair, he almost looks like a sorcerer of old, and he holds himself like one, too. Stephen shouldn’t make opponents out of the other Sanctums, and accept the offer for what it is. He nods along, shaking the hand Wright offers him.

‘’I would be delighted,’’ he answers, and doesn’t ask what matters Wright thinks that would be.

~*~

Tony only wakes up because the door creaks; at first, the sound annoys him, but as he tries to turn in his sleep he realizes that he’s not lying down comfortably at all, and opens his eyes instantaneously.

Minoru is standing before him, a worried frown on her face, Master Zhao standing next to her. He says something to her in sharp Cantonese, and she replies in kind before crouching down before him. ‘’Stark?’’ she says, her voice low. ‘’Stark, can you hear me?’’

He sits up straighter and gags at the smell in the cell. ‘’Yeah, yes, obviously,’’ he says, and stands up with a little more difficulty than he would have liked. He leans on the stone walls, until Minoru has to look up again to meet his eyes.

‘’Can you walk?’’ she asks.

Tony blinks, and considers it. ‘’I’m fine,’’ he answers, maybe a bit more snappish than is warranted, but fair is fair – he’s been locked up in a cell for the better part of two days under her care. Or at least, he thinks it’s been that long. 

Her displeased expression says she doesn’t quite agree with that self-assessment, but Tony ignores that and walks past her. Zhao looks concerned, but Tony just brings up a half-smile for him. ‘’Hey, buddy,’’ he says. Zhao solemnly says something in Cantonese, and Tony just nods. ‘’Right back at you.’’

Zhao creates a portal – it’s more a yellow sort of sparks that fly from it than the orange Tony has seen before, and he looks at it. Minoru doesn’t seem to have time for that kind of curiosity from him, and almost drags him through it before Tony can even protest. He only lets out a hiss as his ribs are jostled, and settles his hand against them before he can think the better of it.

‘’Your definition of 'fine' is something we seem to disagree on, Mr Stark,’’ Minoru says dispassionately, but her grip turns more gentle as she eases him down on a white bed. Tony looks around; it looks as if they’re still in the Sanctum, but in a sort of med-bay. There’s more light than in the rest of the Sanctum, and the white gives it the vibe of being a hospital. Still, no one seems to wear doctor coats and there are some potions lying around that are definitely not part of an ordinary doctor’s medicine supply. 

A doctor comes to see them quickly enough; he is still young, and his eyes are sharp. ‘’No, not you,’’ Master Minoru says abruptly. ‘’Get Master Hartshorne. Go now.’’

The young doctor doesn’t even respond to her harsh tone; he turns immediately and says something to a colleague, apparently trying to get to Master Hartshorne as soon as he can. Tony watches him go before turning back to Minoru, only to find her staring at him already.

‘’I’m fine,’’ he insists. ‘’I could use a drink, and some food, but besides –‘’

‘’Wait,’’ Minoru interrupts, and puts her hand on his forehead. She feels cold, or maybe it’s Tony who’s warm, and he waits impatiently for her to be done. ‘’Alright. No one has cursed you any further – you can eat and drink. Master Zhao –‘’

Zhao reappears – and only that makes Tony realize that he was gone in the first place – with a bottle of water and a sandwich, handing them over eagerly. Tony blinks as he takes them. ‘’He really does have a way of finding exactly what you need. Though I would’ve preferred coffee and a cheeseburger.’’

‘’That’s not what you need, however,’’ Minoru says wryly. ‘’Yes, it’s Master Zhao’s gift. Magic is not always the same in everyone. Just sit here and drink, I am sure Master Hartshorne will be here soon.’’

‘’Who is Master Hartshorne?’’ Tony asks. ‘’What happened?’’

‘’Master Hartshorne is our finest doctor,’’ she answers easily. ‘’For as what happened – I’d hoped you would be able to tell me. Master Zhao appeared at my door in apparent distress after you did not reappear when you were supposed to. We went looking for you in the usual places, but did not manage to find you. So we went out searching for you in the entire Sanctum and there you were – captive in the cells we save for our most powerful evildoers.’’

‘’First of all, I don’t need your finest doctor –‘’

‘’You do, because she’s the only one who will be able to counter-spell against your curse and remember you –‘’

‘’All right, okay, so maybe I do need her, but I’m fine. I mean, apart from the fact that one of your guys thought I was a thief and beat me up and locked me up, apparently, but hey, not everyone is as hospitable, I should –‘’

Minoru’s face hardens. ‘’He did _what_?’’

It’s the most emotion Tony has seen from her thus far. ‘’He thought I was an intruder, that I’d come to steal something. Just a thought, maybe we should do something about me being able to walk around normally in the Sanctum.’’

‘’I’d never thought any of my people would resort to such needless violence,’’ she says. ‘’I am truly sorry, Tony Stark, for the harm that has befallen you in my care.’’

She does look sorry – it makes her look young and vulnerable, even as the steel in her eyes informs him of the ways she’s going to make sure he’s safe in the Sanctum from now on. It’s odd, to see her like this; he can feel himself warming up to her a bit, seeing her now, so worried for a man that she is responsible for. She reminds him of Stephen, like this, and he doesn’t wonder at how they became Masters. They care, and they know how to _take_ care, even if it isn’t apparent at the first glance. They feel responsible, and Tony sighs.

‘’I don’t blame you,’’ he tells her sincerely. ‘’I’ll be fine, I’m just a bit bruised up.’’

‘’You look terrible,’’ Minoru says.

‘’That’s rude,’’ Tony notes.

Her lips twitch, and he smiles back at her; it feels like an understanding, and then she stands up to greet Master Hartshorne and to explain the situation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well, at least he's not locked up anymore! i'm working on the final two chapters :) sometimes i wish i was updating everything i've just written because i'm really hyped about finishing this up and it's going to be a while before you even get to see it!! at least i got to work ahead this time, i should do that more often lmao.
> 
> hope you enjoyed this chapter! perhaps next week is the last wednesday update before we're switching to two chapters a week.... ;)


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> an update on Monday??? oh yes. I finished writing Citizen Erased yesterday evening (!!!!), and I've started editing today. That means that biweekly updates have started! it's probably going to be Mondays & Thursdays now, but there may be some variation sometimes. Hope you enjoy!

Tony is sketching a blueprint when Stephen sees him again for the first time after they’d dropped him off at the Hong Kong Sanctum. He’s in the library, and Stephen has been brought here by a sorcerer who he can haltingly talk to in Cantonese. He’s never had a gift for the language.

Tony doesn’t even notice him when he enters. ‘’Hmm, Zhao? Did you bring that sandwich I asked for? I’m starving, you know. Don’t forget I brought you that chicken and rice a few days ago. That was a considerate move on my part, you know, because I’m a considerate person. Who’s starving.’’

Zhao shakes his head amusedly and says something in Cantonese that Stephen thinks translates to either ‘duck who puts on socks that have blue dots’ or ‘hungry moron with spicy coins’. As he said, he’s a bit rusty. Tony still doesn’t look up, just makes a displeased sound. ‘’How was I supposed to know you’re vegetarian? You are supposed to tell me these things before I bring you food.’’

‘’You know he doesn’t speak English, right?’’ Stephen notes dryly. Tony starts as if struck by lightning, and he looks up, his dark eyes taking in Stephen. At the same time, he notes Tony, and starts frowning. The man looks dreadful; there’s a small laceration on his discoloured nose, and the majority of the left side of his face is blue and green, fading bruises spread all over. 

Tony recovers quickly. ‘’All the better. People like me more when they don’t know what I’m saying.’’

Stephen is still staring. ‘’Tony, what happened to you?’’

The man blinks, and the greeting smile slips off his face before he shrugs. ‘’Ran into a door,’’ he says with a mock-cheerfulness that Stephen doesn’t buy.

‘’The door must have had a vicious right hook,’’ he says, but drops down in front of Tony anyway to inspect his face. Tony scowls at him and pushes him away. As he turns back to ask Master Zhao what happened, he notices that the Master is gone.

‘’It was a magic door,’’ Tony says. ‘’I think all of your doors do more damage than normal ones.’’

‘’You know I’ll find out one way or another,’’ Stephen tells him. ‘’Look – what happened? Did someone attack you? Minoru –‘’

‘’Minoru did everything she could,’’ Tony says. ‘’You knew my curse would bring problems with it. Someone didn’t remember me and locked me up. Master Zhao and Master Minoru found me in time, and everything’s fine now. I’ve had worse.’’

Stephen feels something twinge. ‘’It shouldn’t have been able to happen!’’ he says hotly. ‘’Did someone attack you in the Sanctum? One of the sorcerers? How did you –‘’

‘’Stop it,’’ Tony responds, and stands up from his chair, the blueprints lying forgotten on the desk. ‘’You were the one who left me here in the first place, you know! I didn’t _ask_ to go to Hong Kong!’’

He feels a hot-headed response coming, but manages to curb his tongue just in time. He’s fought with Tony once before, and it didn’t end well that time. He doesn’t want Tony to run out into Hong Kong – so much could happen, and besides, Stephen doesn’t want to fight. He’s just upset that someone under his protection was hurt like this, and without him knowing.

Besides, Tony is right. Stephen _did_ leave him there, because he had other things on his plate. He knows they’re all valid reasons, but he promised to help Tony, too. And it’s clear their issues are related in one way or another. Tony wants to help, and Stephen just pushes and pushes. He’s not going to push anymore.

‘’You’re right,’’ he says, and feels Tony draw back as if he thought Stephen was going to continue fighting. ‘’I did ask you to stay. Minoru promised me she would do her best to help you, and I thought I could focus on protecting the Sanctum. But none of that seems to be working, and it seems only harm has been done.’’

‘’Hey, no, that’s not true,’’ Tony protests, and suddenly it’s him who’s nearing Stephen, angry on the other’s behalf. ‘’You’re protecting everyone. It’s an exhausting job, and I could know. I’ve fought for years to keep the Avengers together, you know, and that wasn’t easy. I know you’re trying to do the right thing here.’’

‘’There is nothing to find,’’ Stephen says. ‘’Nothing to protect against, not until something changes. And I’m out of options except for the one option you have given me.’’

He can’t quite read what Tony is thinking, but his eyes soften even as his brows furrow. ‘’And I can’t solve that until you help me,’’ the man says determinedly. ‘’We can turn this around, you know. We’ll just have to work together. I’ll come back to your Sanctum, and we’ll fix it.’’

And all things slot together, as Stephen finds himself nodding. It seems easier, somehow, to protect the Sanctum together. As if he was just waiting for Tony to come back to New York so they could move onwards, instead of waiting for Minoru to fix a problem she may not even have the answers to. She has a case, a possibility, and she hasn’t found anything else. No, Tony has to come back.

Tony will come back, and they’ll finish this for once and for all.

~*~

Packing doesn’t take long. Tony takes his notes on his reading and the few blueprints he managed to draw up. After a moment’s hesitation, he takes up his notes and sketches of updates to the Iron Man suit, too. He doesn’t have it right now, but he still feels loathe to leave it behind, as if he’ll never be Iron Man again. He’ll get it all back, and he’ll get to update his newest suit, he convinces himself.

He doesn’t feel sorry to go; he hasn’t been here for long, and his experiences haven’t been all wonderful. He will miss Zhao, though – he definitely has some sort of friend in the Cantonese sorcerer. He has developed an understanding with Minoru, too, but he’s certain he’ll see more of her. Even now, as they’re waiting on him to finish packing, she’s standing in the hallway with Stephen, quietly talking. From her regretful looks and Stephen’s disquieting glances, he thinks they’re talking about what happened to him. 

Tony interrupts them with a cheerful smile plastered on his face. He doesn’t need the pity, and he definitely doesn’t need the remorse coming from them. He looks worse than he feels, and it’s not as if he hasn’t had his fair share of scrapes and bruises before. Just because they deem him to be their responsibility doesn’t mean they’re actually to be held accountable for everything.

Maybe he’s starting to feel how Pepper always felt about Tony’s lingering guilt.

He shakes it away – he’s been trying very hard not to think about her. Stephen turns to him when he’s done, and smiles slightly. Minoru just offers him a nod. ‘’The Hong Kong Sanctum is saddened to see you leave, Mr Stark,’’ she says kindly. 

‘’You know you can just call me Tony,’’ he tells her. ‘’Besides, in time, you won’t even remember what it was like to have an annoying American run around your halls.’’

She shakes her head at him in a desperate sort of humour. ‘’I will remember,’’ she says. ‘’I promise you that. You have friends at the Hong Kong Sanctum.’’

Master Zhao nods at that, and smiles toothily at him. He says something again, and Tony doesn’t even try to follow what he’s saying anymore. He can see Stephen frowning at the older man, but he ignores it as he claps the sorcerer on his back.

‘’I will miss the sandwiches and the Cantonese lullabies. If you ever happen to be around New York, I’ll teach you some English ones. I can teach you all the bad words, too. It’ll be fun.’’

With that, Master Zhao lets out a hearty laugh and repeats something back. Tony just smiles. Stephen says his goodbyes too, bowing to both Masters, before he creates a portal and they both step through it to return to New York. Immediately, Tony feels lighter. There’s a distinct feel of the New York Sanctum around him, and he didn’t even know he can sense that he’s back home until he’s actually there.

Tony takes a deep breath. Besides him, Stephen is still frowning. He pokes the sorcerer’s ribs with his elbow, raising his eyebrows at him. ‘’What are you scowling at?’’ he asks. 

Stephen just shakes his head. ‘’My Cantonese is a bit rusty, but either Master Zhao called you a loaf of bread with wooden tentacles, or he said that you’re a kind-hearted soup maniac.’’

Tony blinks, and then thinks on it for a second. ‘’Definitely the first one,’’ he offers lightly.

~*~

Tony gets settled back in New York as if he never left. He wasn’t away for very long, and his room is still empty, so he puts back his few belongings there when they arrive. He sees Wong, Master Chen and Master Brown again at lunch, when Stephen invites him to eat with all the Masters. Master Haman is teaching, but Tony still enjoys having people to actually eat lunch with again. Master Zhao was fun, but he did miss talking.

It barely even dampens his spirit when Simeon forgets to bring him his food again, because Master Brown offers him her food and asks the cook to bring her something new. It’s all dealt with so directly and without pity that he doesn’t mind, because there’s more people here that remember him than he has anywhere else, and that makes him more cheerful. No one comments on his curse, no one remarks on his bruised face, and the usually solemn Masters of the New York Sanctum laugh at jokes and smile at anecdotes and feel more like friends than Tony has had in a long time.

Maybe being back in New York has a little to do with it, too.

Maybe it also helps that Tony finally feels at home again, and he wonders when that started.

~*~

They start working the day after, because Tony still needs to finish and edit his blueprints. It would have gone a lot faster with FRIDAY, but he’s doing it by hand, and that brings back memories, too. The last time he made any blueprint fully by hand was in Afghanistan, and he tries not to think of Yinsen beside him there, eyes wide and unbelieving at their escape plan.

Tony allows himself to feel a stab of sorrow for his long-lost friend – if the man who grew to mean so much to him in such a short period can be called ‘friend’, because the word seems inadequate – and then pushes it away. No one would want him to linger on his grief – not Yinsen, not Pepper. They’d tell him to man up and become who he is meant to be, to do what he is meant to do. They want him to live, and Tony is going to do what they tell him to, because they’re the wisest persons he knows.

So he sketches and measures and double-checks his math, until he’s done.

After that, Stephen looks everything over. It’s a day full of discussion; Stephen adds almost unintelligible notes, and Tony jokes about the handwriting of a doctor. Still, they slowly piece together, one by one, a way that the device could work. The most challenging thing to handle, as Tony understands it, is making it pick up the traces. There are still spells left from the guy who they recognized, as he understands it. 

‘’Look,’’ Stephen explains to him, his hands glowing red as he holds a Sling Ring. ‘’This belonged to Derrick Price – the sorcerer who left. To use this object, he had to use magic first. Magic always leaves traces, and in the trace, you can read who cast a certain spell. Magic is a bit like DNA, in that way – everyone’s magic differs.’’

‘’Shouldn’t everyone have their own special kind of magic, in that case?’’ Tony asks, looking at the pulsing colours floating between Stephen’s long fingers. Stephen’s hands look like those of a doctor, he thinks; dexterous and flexible, capable and in control. He tries not to look at the faded scars on the sorcerer’s hands – he tries not to think what happened to them. Suddenly, he feels very aware of how little he actually knows about Stephen.

He has a feeling he shouldn’t ask about his past now, and Stephen doesn’t say anyway, lost in his own world. The vivid colours of the magic are reflected in the pupils of his eyes. He is silent for a few moments, before answering Tony’s question. 

‘’Magic is hard to explain,’’ he eventually says. ‘’It is like a code, like DNA, and at the same time it is capable of so much more. Yes, we have our own traces, and we have our own talents in that same magic. Still, it’s more like – like having a voice. We all have a voice, and we can all do the same thing with it. But our voices are all different, too: some people have a boisterous voice, others have a great singing voice. We all have a one and we can all do the same things with it, only some do it better than others.’’

Tony only nods, and they continue working side by side.

_All your letters in the sand cannot heal me like your hand_ , he hears as Queen plays in the background. Tony continues working, as Stephen sits by his side and diligently finds the traces of Derrick Price’s magic.

_Don't you hear my call though you're many years away_  
_Don't you hear me calling you_  
_All your letters in the sand cannot heal me like your hand –_

~*~

‘’So what do you expect we’ll find, if this works?’’ Tony asks casually, as they are pouring over the blueprints again together. Stephen is frowning too hard at them, muttering too fast for Tony to keep up with, while skimming through two books in different languages. Tony wonders if this is what he looks like when he’s inventing – soaked up in his own world, almost alight with a maniac energy. It’s dark outside, which means that they’ve done little else but work in the library for almost three days straight.

Tony thinks that Wong is keeping everyone else out, at this point. Maybe they should move to a less public place in the morning – it’s basically time for him to start building, anyway. It would help with some of the more practical issues they were wondering how to solve. He should go buy the parts, tomorrow, and he thinks Stephen should come with him. The Sorcerer Supreme looks pale enough to pass as a vampire instead of a wizard.

Stephen only looks up when Tony repeats his question. ‘’Expect?’’ the man repeats. ‘’I expect we’ll be able to find Derrick Price and the group he joined. I expect that whoever did this to you has a connection to that group, and to find that person. But beyond that, all I can do is hope that will be the end of it all.’’

Tony smiles faintly. ‘’It will be. If we can make this work – we just need to figure out a way to make it track the magic. The input –‘’

‘’That’s the problem,’’ Stephen says in frustration. ‘’It won’t pick up any reliable signal that’s further away than – wait.’’

Tony narrows his eyes. ‘’It can pick up the signal,’’ he says slowly. ‘’If we –‘’

Stephen scribbles down something, numbers and magic all mixed together. ‘’It would work,’’ he says, staring almost in fascination at it. ‘’We can’t track it, but we’ll know if it’s near. It can find traces for – well, maybe a few blocks? It’s not much, but with the portals –‘’

‘’We can do a city-wide hunt,’’ Tony finishes.

‘’If they’re still in the city, that is.’’

Tony shrugs. ‘’We’ll know if they come near, too,’’ he points out. ‘’We just need to take the device, and it’ll pick up the specific trace in Derrick’s energy output. It’s not a flawless plan, but it’s better than anything else we have.’’

‘’It’ll be enough,’’ Stephen says, and his eyes are bright. ‘’They don’t know we have it – we should be careful about travelling with it. I need to hide it somewhere unseen, so we’ll have to work on making it smaller, too.’’

Tony frowns. ‘’Why? No one will know, right?’’

‘’I think their people have been watching – how did they know you were with me? How did they know I’d promised to help? We haven’t been out of the Sanctum much, and we were never that conspicuous. Someone was watching you, or watching me, and I don’t want to give this advantage away.’’

Realization dawns on him. ‘’You said that they didn’t expect as much resistance, when they came into the Sanctum,’’ Tony says. ‘’Maybe they thought everyone would be looking for me. Maybe they expected the Sanctum to be empty.’’

‘’Which also means no one from the Sanctum is involved,’’ Stephen says thoughtfully. ‘’Someone’s spying on us, and there’s no intelligence coming from inside. Well, that’s a relief, to be certain. I didn’t actually think anyone would, but it wouldn’t have been the first time someone turned against the Sanctum unexpectedly.’’

From the expression on his face, he’s thinking about someone in particular, and it doesn’t seem to be very positive. Tony just nods.

‘’Well, if we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves, we should send someone else to go shopping for us,’’ he says grinning, and takes another piece of paper. ‘’I’ll write down what we need, so no one has to deal with those scrawls that you call writing.’’

Stephen shakes his head at him and continues scribbling spells, still muttering under his breath as his mind races through all possibilities.

Tony feels like he can fly, even without his suit. With a bit of luck, this curse is almost at its end, and he can return to his regular life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If it needed to be said, I don't know any Cantonese at all, and I'm sure it shows in whatever translations I try to give. Probably the things aren't even close to each other at all in actual Cantonese, but oh well. Stephen's not great at it, either.
> 
> Now that I'm done writing this fic and only the editing is left, I may start writing all the other fics that I haven't had time for the last few months while I was writing this (I honestly wrote 175k in three months? I'm actually kind of proud of myself). Most of those will be ironstrange, if you're interested in reading more of my stuff ;)
> 
> and two updates a week from now on!!! let's just hope I won't annoy all of you!


	11. Chapter 11

Tony feels more in his element than he has in a long while. If pouring over books made him feel like a student again, creating brings him back to his days of designing and building. It’s wonderful – it’s not quite like his own lab, but Stephen’s private workroom is large enough and the lighting is sufficient for him to easily work. Besides, Stephen makes for a wonderful lab partner.

‘’How did you manage to buy all of this, again?’’ Stephen asks him, faintly amused, as he hands Tony another welder. He looks different, in a white lab coat and his safety goggles on. His Cloak has stubbornly settled over the white coat, and his sorcerer’s clothes are still under the coat, too. Still, he manages to pull it off with the sort of careless charm he has. Tony just shakes his head at the fashion disaster that is Stephen Strange.

‘’I told you,’’ Tony says. ‘’Stark Industries doesn’t remember I’m on payroll. I still get money every month. I can’t imagine what Pepper will think when she finds out that a guy she doesn’t even remember is getting such a substantial pay check. On the other hand, she’ll probably forget all about it. I still have enough money to buy anything I want – though you’d be surprised how hard it is to buy or get anything when people simply forget you after five seconds. It’s impossible, I’m telling you. Besides, it’s not enough to buy a cure to this curse either.’’

‘’Well, I’m not that expensive,’’ Stephen answers, a sarcastic smile on his face. ‘’And I do plan on finding a way to help you.’’

Tony laughs. ‘’I’ll be sure to remember that. Don’t I get a discount for helping you out here?’’

‘’I’m sure we can work something out. You can discuss it with Wong, though – I’m not great with financial matters. For that matter, neither is Wong. Do you know he only ever carries like a dollar with him?’’

Tony nods thoughtfully. ‘’No focus on the material,’’ he says. ‘’And other vague stuff like that. Don’t you need money to, you know, maintain this place and your way of life?’’

Stephen huffs. ‘’We have our ways. Still, it’s a struggle to go to the Subway when I’m the only one who carries around money.’’

Tony finishes welding and removes his goggles. ‘’You were a doctor,’’ he points out. ‘’Not just a doctor, you were the best neurosurgeon in New York. Don’t you have tons of money lying around somewhere?’’

‘’Whenever I had any money, I would go around to buy myself something expensive immediately,’’ Stephen answers, shrugging. ‘’I didn’t worry about saving up. Didn’t think twice about it – of course, that only cost me when I got into that accident. I couldn’t pay for a remedy, and I spent my last money to go to Kamar Taj and find a way to save myself there. Find someone who could fix my problem, so I could return to my old life. Instead, I found out about the Sanctum and the Mystic Arts, and all that comes with it. I studied, and I learnt, and yet, I still wasn’t cured. It was years until I could; but in the meanwhile, I decided that I’d found something more worthy to devote my life to. Something that doesn’t have to do with money and endless ambition; another way to save lives.’’

Tony is silent for a moment, and he doesn’t look at Stephen but at what they’re building. He puts down his tools. ‘’What did happen, anyway?’’ he asks, then. ‘’You never said.’’

When he does look at Stephen, he finds the sorcerer grimacing. ‘’Car accident,’’ he says, and holds up his scarred hands. ‘’Eleven stainless steel pins into my bones. I could hardly write; there was no chance of me ever becoming a doctor again, and that’s something I couldn’t bear. It took me a long while to learn how to live with it, but it’s better now.’’

They work in silence for a while, as Tony continues putting together the necessary parts and Stephen waving in the magic necessary. The device sputters blue shimmers sometimes, before it accepts and settles down. It’s delicate work, and the timing is crucial for it to work. Still, Stephen and Tony work together seamlessly, moving together like parts of a machine. 

More than half an hour has passed before Tony speaks up again. ‘’I don’t think you were a doctor because of selfish reasons,’’ he eventually says. ‘’Money, ambition, of course those are more… well, human reasons. But I don’t think that’s what made you do it. I think you cared – I think you’ve always cared. I see what you’re doing now, and you’re not doing it because it’s easy, you’re not even doing it because you’re good at it. You’re doing it because it’s the right thing to do, and you know that it’s you who should be doing it. You’re here because you can’t step down from it. You’re doing it because you’ve seen something bigger than you, and you’ve met someone who believes you can be more, and you’re doing it because you care.’’

Stephen is silent for a few moments. ‘’Is that why you did it?’’ he asks. ‘’Become Iron Man?’’

‘’I have my own scars,’’ Tony says, tapping on the arc reactor in his chest. ‘’I’ve been told long before that I could do more, but I refused to listen, because I was selfish and wanted to do things the easy way. I only listened after I got this, and I only made Iron Man to save myself. I continued to be Iron Man because I liked flying.’’

The sorcerer looks at him for a few moment. ‘’Loved flying so much that you flew into a wormhole to save Earth,’’ he says flatly.

‘’Yeah, well,’’ Tony coughs. ‘’The sky is the limit.’’

He turns back to the device, but he can feel Stephen’s eyes on him long after.

‘’I think I know you better than that, by now,’’ he says quietly. Tony doesn’t comment, but smiles down at his work anyway, sure that Stephen doesn’t see it.

~*~

They work mostly in silence – well, barring the music that’s playing in the background. Tony has forced Stephen to make a more mixed play list, though he refused to put on AC/DC. It’s easy-going, for a while, except for the difficulty of creating the tracker. Not that it can be called a tracker, anymore, now it has become more like a sensor. Neither of them think that it’s possible to get a greater reach out of the device, but Stephen is still certain that it will prove better than nothing. 

He has known that magic and science lie closer together ever since the Ancient One started teaching him. It was one of the first things she told him – magic is code. It shouldn’t be as surprising to see the technology work so well with the Mystic Arts, but it still feels a bit otherworldly. It’s as if two very different things are in essence the same.

It only serves to prove how challenging it is to combine them, even if it works well enough so far. Stephen sees Tony’s quiet determination and incredible intellect concentrate on the task at hand, and marvels at the aptitude of the man before him. Of course, he knew on some level that Tony Stark was one of the cleverest men in the world; it’d been impossible not to be aware of the fact. 

It’s a different thing to see him bend the laws of nature and create something previously undiscovered. There’s an eagerness in the dark eyes, and Stephen just watches him take parts apart and create something different out of them. There’s a streak of oil beneath his eye, just above the slowly-fading bruises, and Stephen is pretty sure there’s some in his hair, too. His lips are slightly parted as he mutters something to himself, until Stephen realizes that he’s just repeating mathematical equations to himself. He wonders if it calms the man down, and if Tony even realizes he’s doing it.

Stephen returns to Derrick Price’s Sling Ring, muttering a short spell to himself to make the traces in it light up. 

‘’Right,’’ Tony says, turning to him. Now the full concentration of the inventor is focused on Stephen; he can see why others would be intimidated. He doesn’t think Tony is aware of the effects his scrutiny can have, with his large dark eyes. Stephen just smiles in some amusement. ‘’This is where you come in, isn’t it?’’

‘’Yes,’’ Stephen allows. ‘’Have you –‘’

‘’Yep. All finished.’’

It’s not even as if Tony is being impatient – he honestly doesn’t seem to realize he hasn’t let Stephen finish, already turning back to his project, taking apart something new with nimble fingers. Tony’s brain works on another level, and neither of them need to dumb things down for the other. It’s something Stephen thoroughly enjoys. If all his students were like Tony, teaching would come easier to him. Tony doesn’t need a thorough explanation to understand the logic of something; he automatically understands the finer nuances and details of a problem. Their method of learning and working is much alike, though it’s in different fields.

Stephen starts working, and doesn’t fail to notice Tony’s attention slowly coming to rest on his own work, just like Stephen watched him earlier on. The Mystic Arts are still a source of wonder to him, it seems. He continues weaving his spell, delicately focusing on entwining the traces of Price’s magic into the device and making them stick. He’s careful to remove all signs of his own spell, whispering softly to make the energy perish and dissolve into tiny specks of indigo. 

‘’It’s art, what you do,’’ Tony says, still staring at it. ‘’I wouldn’t have believed it, ten years ago.’’

Stephen smiles. ‘’Me neither,’’ he answers. ‘’But don’t underestimate your own kind of art. This is a collaboration.’’

They just have a moment before Wong enters the room. Stephen’s friend watches him with a frown before focusing on the sensor. ‘’Is that it?’’ he asks.

‘’It’s not finished yet,’’ Tony says. ‘’But I’m still missing a certain part. Master Chen says they’ll order it and that it’ll arrive soon. Still, we’re on track.’’

‘’When did that happen?’’ Wong asks.

‘’This morning,’’ Stephen answers cheerfully. ‘’You were still snoozing, I think.’’

He smirks at him, and Wong harrumphs before walking to the table and dropping a book there, open at one of the final pages. It’s an old manuscripts; Stephen doesn’t remember it, but it looks like a sort of record, going by all the names and dates written in it.

‘’I found something in the library, more by accident than anything else,’’ Wong says, and lets Tony and Stephen peek at the book from behind him. ‘’It’s an account from about a hundred and twenty years ago, originally placed in Kamar Taj. The librarian then wrote down the criminals they found and judged, mostly sorcerers themselves who had broken an important rule. It’s a practice that went out of use a long time ago, but some Masters still cursed their apprentices for certain offences. There is an entry in this about someone that was punished with a curse that is extremely similar to Stark’s.’’

Tony blinks. ‘’Wait, so someone had the same curse as I did?’’ he asks. ‘’I thought you had searched everywhere for accounts.’’

Wong nods. ‘’We did,’’ he says, ‘’but this book isn’t an account of curses. It’s merely here to keep records; there’s no cures, there’s nothing about how the spell was cast. Nothing but the information that this man once existed and was punished, and nothing else.’’

Stephen stares at the yellowed pages. It’s there, in cursive handwriting – only a single line among hundreds of others in the book. It’s impossible to find, had he even thought to search in this particular book.

‘’John Griffin,’’ he reads out, ‘’apprentice to Master Miaoulus, September 1891-1897. Griffin cursed three children to their death; he is punished to be forgotten into eternity by everyone who knows him for this heinous crime; the Curse of Athazagora.’’

‘’There’s nothing else about him,’’ Wong says. ‘’I searched his name, but it’s hard to find anything. It seems everyone actually forgot about him. There is no record of him in our Sanctum, or there’s not one I can find. I have searched thoroughly.’’

‘’So this Curse of Atta-something,’’ Tony says. ‘’It’s… a punishment? And it’s the same as mine?’’

‘’Athazagora. And there’s too little information to be sure.’’ Stephen takes the small book, turning a few pages to see. ‘’It’s not referenced anywhere else?’’

Wong shakes his head. ‘’I haven’t found anything. If there was an account of the Curse of Athazagora in our library, I would have come across it now. It’s rare, but it does show that this is not a new curse. Whatever group this is, they have something to do with the Sanctum – even if it’s far removed.’’

‘’But then why would they curse me?’’ Tony demands.

Stephen turns to him. ‘’You’re sure that you didn’t make any enemies from any Sanctum?’’ Stephen presses. ‘’Someone who would see this as some kind of punishment that you deserve? You don’t have any magic enemies at all?’’

‘’Look, I’d have said something long before if I thought I did,’’ Tony answers with some annoyance, putting his hands on his thighs. ‘’I’m pretty well-known, I could have pissed off anyone without me knowing I did. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time. It doesn’t even have to be me who pissed someone off, I’m the public figure for more than one group – it could be any Avenger who did something…’’

‘’Tony?’’ Stephen asks, and Tony looks pained.

‘’There is _one_ magic-user who doesn’t exactly like me,’’ he says hesitantly. ‘’She disappeared from the Compound before I started noticing the effects, but, I don’t know – she’s an Avenger. On the other hand, she really doesn’t like me all that much.’’

‘’Wanda Maximoff?’’ Stephen asks. He hasn’t even thought of her. ‘’She’s not affiliated with our Sanctum. Her magic isn’t exactly like ours. How could she have learnt about a spell like this?’’

‘’But some people did leave because of an outsider, presumably,’’ Wong says. ‘’If she’s really opposed to Stark, she might have met some people and convinced them. It’s worth paying a visit, at least – it’ll be a few days before your device is finished.’’

‘’I didn’t even think of her,’’ Tony says, and there’s something upset in his voice. ‘’I – well, you know, we were never on best terms, but it’s been a few years. I do trust her, but besides Loki, I don’t know who else could hate me on a personal level. And Loki hasn’t been on Earth in a long time.’’

Stephen turns to him. ‘’She may not have betrayed your trust in the first place. I can contact the Avengers; it’s about time we had a meeting. I will try to ask if Maximoff can come, too, and we can see if the trace matches hers, or if she knows more.’’

Tony still doesn’t look happy, but agrees to it. Stephen has to leave after that – he still has a Sanctum to run, after all.

It’s a long day, and Stephen talks to his Masters, checks the security of the Sanctum, receives and responds to messages from Wright and Minoru. He and Wong go around the Sanctum to see if everything is secure and in place, and there’s dinner somewhere in there, too. He doesn’t talk to Tony there, but he does see him, animatedly in discussion with Master Haman on something. Stephen is too far away to hear, and he gets called away by Master Brown before he can join them. He ends up eating with Master Brown and some of her potion students, and the next time he looks up, Tony is already gone.

~*~

‘’Doctor Strange,’’ Rogers says, his voice sounding surprised even over the phone. Stephen shuffles in his chair, his free hand resting on the desk. ‘’I didn’t expect a call from you.’’

‘’I imagine so, Captain Rogers,’’ he answers politely. ‘’I have a matter to discuss with you and your team. Your full team, in fact – particularly Miss Maximoff. It’s a matter of the Mystic Arts. I’d like to have a meeting, as soon as possible.’’

‘’I understand,’’ comes Rogers’ answer, though he doesn’t sound like he really does. ‘’Well, not everyone will be here for a while, but I can try to get everyone through in a few days, maybe by Friday. I’ll make sure Wanda is here too, then, if that’s what you want. What do you want to have a meeting on?’’

‘’That’d be great,’’ Stephen answers cheerfully. ‘’I merely want to discuss a matter at hand that I think will be interesting to you, too. It’s a problem that’s fallen from your laps into mine, and I mean to make some things right. Just a head’s up: I’ll bring some of my people, too. Looking forward to it!’’

He hangs up without waiting for a response. His Cloak taps him on the shoulder and makes a certain motion at him. Stephen shrugs.

‘’I don’t know if he knows anything,’’ he responds. ‘’I only know that we’re going to find out in a few days, and regaining an alliance with the Avengers might be worth it anyway, just in case. Except, of course, if they have anything to do with cursing Tony.’’

The Cloak makes a disapproving move. Stephen just ignores it and goes back to his book.

~*~

Tony has trouble sleeping, so he wanders through the hallways of the Sanctum. His ribs and bruises, though slowly getting better, still ache, and it makes it hard to lie down comfortably. It’s late at night, and if there’s one thing that he’s learnt about the Sanctum is that most of them are early sleepers and early risers. Apart from Stephen and Wong, clearly, but they’re unusual in more regards than one.

He doesn’t run into anyone, though, and he’s grateful for that. He can’t work on the sensor, because he doesn’t have the parts and it’s in Stephen’s private working room, adjoined to his bedroom, but that’s fine. He’s spent more than one sleepless night in the library, and he heads that way.

Everything is familiar to him already. He doesn’t quite remember how long ago it is that he first knocked on the doors to the Sanctum, but it feels like a lifetime ago. It can’t be much more than a month, in truth – maybe one and a half. Summer is fading already, the stifling heat replaced with cooler nights. Not that Tony has seen much of it; he’s spent most of it here.

It brings him an odd sort of feeling, that he’s been here so long already. He didn’t think that he would be here for over a month when he first came; he didn’t count on finding a new place to stay, he’d just wanted to know if Stephen Strange could help him. He didn’t expect to – well, to become closer to him, and all the other Masters beside. He already has a life, he already has friends to get back to, and yet it’s like he’s more stuck in the Sanctum every day. 

Maybe he’s forgetting about his old life, just as they’ve all forgotten about him.

Tony sighs, and drops his head on the cool wood of the desk in the library. It’s tiring to think of it all; there’s nothing he wants more than to go back. He can still return to his life, and he’ll just – be friends with the people here? It’s not like Stephen and Wong won’t be glad to have him out of the way again. They wouldn’t ever tell him that, of course. They’re too kind to throw him out, and besides, it’s obvious they feel responsible over him somewhat.

Well. They’re the only people in the world to remember him, after all. Tony doesn’t have anybody else; he’s pretty much dependant on the Sanctum anyway, until everything gets solved.

It’s the dead of night, and Tony falls asleep in the library, dreaming of reaching for the sky and falling.

  
Stephen Strange in his doctor's coat with the Cloak

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My friend Mara is not only the one who convinced me that this story should be written, she also read the part about fashion disaster Stephen and decided there needed to be art for that. She's amazingly talented and I'm so happy she drew this! She draws some other stuff, visit her [instagram](https://www.instagram.com/colourmars/) for her art, or look her up on [tumblr](http://www.starkparker.tumblr.com)! By the by, I also have a tumblr that I'm barely on anymore, but if any of you feel like chatting, feel free to hit me up. It's basically the only reason I still check in on there anyway. This is me: [come and say hello!](http://www.tonystarrks.tumblr.com)
> 
> Okay, with that all out of the way: I'm not going to be able to update next Monday, but I'll try to post Ch 12 on Tuesday. Also, I'm going to see Endgame on Tuesday evening!! I'm so excited.


	12. Chapter 12

It’s not that Tony’s not thrilled about seeing the Avengers again soon. Stephen told him about the meeting they’ll have on Friday, and he’d been – well.

Not thrilled.

It’s odd. Rhodey will probably be there, and the last time Tony saw him he was making out with the love of Tony’s life on the couch without remembering he ever existed. Steve will be there and won’t remember all the painful history between them and the hard-won forgiveness. Bruce will be there, and he won’t know how many hours they spent in the lab together. Everyone is going to be there – and none of them will know who he is.

So yeah, it’s safe to say that he feels a bit dubious about going. Stephen promised him he doesn’t need to say anything if he doesn’t want to, but Tony knows himself better than that. He won’t be able to shut up, and he won’t be able to ignore the blank looks in his direction. He wants to see them, of course, but never like _this_. He’s torn up inside, desire to see his old friends and teammates warring with mistrust and hurt and betrayal. They can’t help it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not painful enough without the reminder.

Tony hasn’t told Stephen this, of course; he just accepted the offer with a smile when the sorcerer came to see him. Still, the Sanctum feels too small and too unfamiliar to him after, remembering how close he is to seeing his old life again.

He’s interrupted by Master Chen, who knocks on the door and then freely pokes his head into the room. ‘’The last part for your sensor has arrived,’’ he says. ‘’I can get it for you, if you –‘’

‘’You know what?’’ Tony interrupts. ‘’I’ll get it myself.’’

‘’You’ll – are you sure? It’s a long walk. I can –’’ Master Chen asks.

Tony plasters a fake smile on his face. ‘’Yep. Just give me an address, and I’ll be on my way.’’

And that’s how it happens that Tony strolls around New York City by himself early in the morning. He isn’t wearing a coat, because he doesn’t have a decent one anymore, but it’s still warm enough to be comfortable. It will take him a while to walk there, but he doesn’t mind. He can use the activity, considering he hasn’t done much to keep in shape in the Sanctum. Maybe he can work on that, he muses; it would be fun to establish some sort of routine. Training exercises always help clear his mind, even if they don’t stop his thoughts from racing.

Despite being in the busy Manhattan, it’s not as crowded on the streets as he’d expected it to be. He inclines his head to some people that pass him by, and some of them answer with a quick smile before they’re gone again; it’s almost as if nothing’s the matter with him. It’s like nothing has ever changed, though everything has.

The crisp morning air does him good, though, and he’s not as upset by it as he’d think. Maybe he’s grown numb to the feeling; maybe it’s the fact that some people remember him now. Still, this isn’t too bad, and he walks in the streets with a lighter heart, moving towards the small shop, the sign outside letting Tony know it’s his destination.

When he gets there, the sound of a bell chiming announces his arrival, and someone gets out of the back. No one else is in the shop, and the employee is a younger man, somewhere in his twenties. He looks pleasant enough, with his sandy blond hair and ready smile. ‘’How can I help you, sir?’’ he asks politely.

‘’Something was delivered here for me,’’ he says. ‘’On the name of Stephen Strange.’’

The guy nods. ‘’I’ll look in the back for you,’’ he says, and Tony nods – what else can he do? It’s not a good idea for the young man to go too far away, because he’ll forget all about Tony, but maybe he’ll be quick and remember the package. Tony just waits it out.

After five minutes, he’s accepted the fact that the guy will have forgotten all about him. His mood sours a bit, again; even something as simple as getting a package is hindered by his curse. Just as he debates his next move, the guy walks back in and starts upon seeing Tony.

‘’Hi,’’ Tony says.

‘’I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you coming in,’’ he says apologetically. ‘’How can I help you?’’

‘’A package on the name of Stephen Strange was delivered here,’’ Tony says once again. 

‘’I’ll see if it’s in the back,’’ the man says, unaware of the fact that he’s repeating himself. Tony slumps against the desk as he walks away; he leaves the door open, this time, and Tony sees an opportunity.

‘’How do you feel on the IPv4 versus IPv6 debate?’’ he asks, leaning forward so that the man will maybe hear him. It’s the first thing he thinks to say.

‘’What?’’ the guy says, sounding a bit distant and confused. ‘’Did you need something else?’’

‘’No, get the package,’’ Tony says, and waves his hand in the air as if to move him along faster, despite the fact he probably won’t even see it. ‘’Just curious. IPv4 versus IPv6. I know a lot of debates are going around – what do you think? A professional opinion, so to say.’’

‘’Just – a minute,’’ he says, and Tony doesn’t want to give him a minute. A few seconds could already be too much.

‘’I don’t get what all the fuss is about,’’ he answers quickly. If the man doesn’t want to talk yet, then he will. ‘’IPv4 has its limits, we knew that all along. We have something else available, why not make use of the advancements? It’ll be easier in the long run, anyway, and the ICMP and ARP will be improved by implementing IPv6. I mean, I could probably think of something better than IPv6 too, but it’s not really the area I’m focusing on right now. I should, though, just to end all debates. For now, though, we need IPv6, it’s necessary to accommodate the explosion of internet requirements. We’ve had it around forever, why not use it already? Come on, guys, it’s not the Stone Age anymore. Advancement is something we should strive towards, something we aim for.’’

The young man shuffles back, his expression a bit guarded as he hands Tony the package. ‘’Right,’’ he says. ‘’To be honest, I’m just holding the fort here. I don’t actually know.’’

‘’Didn’t you study, I don’t know, Computer Science or something to be working here?’’

The guy winces. ‘’I study English Literature. My dad just needed an extra pair of hands for today, but he’ll be back in ten minutes if you actually want an opinion.’’

Tony just takes the package and shakes his head. ‘’English Literature,’’ he scoffs. ‘’How much will that be?’’

~*~

He takes another route back, because it’s still early and he doesn’t feel quite ready to be back at the Sanctum yet. The part, small yet important, sits in a bag on his arm. He enjoys the soft blow of wind in the streets, causing goose bumps to appear all over his arms. 

He’s not really watching where he’s going, or watching anything around him – the stroll is doing him good, emptying his mind in as far as it ever is. He doesn’t have to worry about the Avengers, or the Curse of Athazagora, or attacks on the Sanctum. He just has to put one foot in front of the other, and that’s all there is to it. Everything else can wait, and no one is expecting him elsewhere. Barely anyone even knows he exists, anymore.

It’s… liberating, he realizes with some astonishment. 

He’s not thought about it, like that. Of course, it’s a curse and a pain and he’d do anything to be rid of it; but there’s also another side to it. The side of not being responsible for everyone’s general safety, for the advances of Stark Industries. There’s not anyone who wants anything from him right now, and it hasn’t been like that since –

well. It’s never been like that.

He can tentatively see the upsides to being cursed, right until twenty minutes later. He’s getting closer to Bleecker Street again, and he’s walking on 5th Avenue, right on track to where he’s going. The National Museum of Mathematics looms at his left hand – he wouldn’t think anything of it, hadn’t he just run into a group of school kids that apparently were planning to go there. One of the kids bumps into him and it’s like hitting a rock, so Tony falls right over.

‘’I’m so sorry, sir,’’ says Peter Parker, giving him a hand to help him up with large brown eyes. Tony just stares for a second before he remembers that he’s supposed to take the hand. Peter also gets his bag, staring at it with some remorse. ‘’Oh, shit, I hope everything is still fine!’’

Tony looks into the bag. The part seems to be undamaged. He feels some relief at that – who knows how long it’d have taken to have another part ordered? He can just imagine how Peter would feel if he knew he accidentally broke something of Tony’s. He’d look at him with that sad puppy look, and Tony would cave. Well, Peter isn’t that timid around him anymore – maybe he’d just make a smart comment. It could go either way, to be honest.

Although Peter doesn’t know any of that, so he just stares at Tony expectantly. ‘’It’s fine,’’ he waves it off. ‘’Don’t worry about it. Your class taking a trip to the museum?’’

Peter nods, glancing at the rest of his class, leaving. Tony can see Ned out there, talking and laughing but sometimes looking back to see where Peter is. He smiles at it – it kind of reminds him of how he and Rhodey would always be checking up on each other at MIT. Though perhaps Peter and Ned insult each other less. That’d probably be healthy.

‘’Yes, sir,’’ Peter says, his manners impeccable as always. ‘’Again, I’m really sorry for bumping into you.’’

Tony offers him a smile. ‘’It’s fine,’’ he says, though there’s some dirt on his trousers and he can feel a bruise forming on where he fell on his elbow. ‘’You teenagers don’t know your own strength, do you?’’

He can feel Peter shuffle at that, and has to contain his laughter. ‘’Sorry again,’’ Peter says. ‘’I do need to go now. Have a good day, sir!’’

‘’You too, kid,’’ he says fondly and watches Peter run off to join his friends. He keeps watching for a while, even as the groups disappears in the entrance of the building. Damn, he misses the kid. He didn’t even realize before how long it has been since he saw any of his friends. Usually he talked to Peter at least once a day, no matter how busy he was. By now, it’s been far longer. He’s not a big fan.

What was that thing about upsides? Tony can’t quite remember, as he thinks of Peter’s quiet laughter and his rapid-fire way of talking when he’d thought of a new experiment he wanted to do with Tony. 

No upside will ever be enough to make him stop searching for an answer. Tony resolutely starts walking back to Bleecker Street, his bag jostling with each step he takes.

~*~

It’s late in the afternoon when Stephen finds his way to his private study; he’s exhausted and a bit moody, not having slept much. He’s had too busy a day to even get himself some lunch, and it was only thanks to Wong’s interference that he is now free to go at all.

Seeing Tony, then, should have only managed to annoy him. It used to, he remembers quite keenly. At the start, Tony’s presence hadn’t been unwelcome, but it wasn’t received as well as it is now either. Stephen wonders when it started to change; he’s never been on bad terms with Tony, but becoming friends was something he hadn’t seen happening. Perhaps because he only knew Tony the way that everybody knew the genius billionaire; cocky, arrogant, intelligent beyond measure and charming to an unprecedented degree. Perhaps because he recognized his former self in that description, and he didn’t like his former self quite as much as he used to.

Neither of them are that anything close to that description, now. There’s something else at play, something that’s not quite apparent on the surface but that defines them more than anything else. Stephen can’t quite put a name on it, but he sees it in Tony as he enters the study room, where the man is working on their sensor.

Tony doesn’t even notice him at first; he’s working with the new part, screwing and welting and calculating. He’s in deep thought, and Stephen doesn’t want to surprise him and accidentally have him hurt himself, or anything like that. The injuries he received in the Hong Kong Sanctum have all healed, by now; it’s good to see him moving around without pain again – the ribs took longest to get better, he remembers, but now it doesn’t seem like Tony even notices them anymore.

Still, Tony does flinch a bit when he sees Stephen in the opening of the room, watching him disconcertingly closely. ‘’When did you get here?’’ he demands, putting down the disconnected parts he was working on.

Stephen shrugs. ‘’Just now,’’ he answers easily. ‘’I didn’t want to startle you.’’

Tony snorts. ‘’Mission failed,’’ he says. ‘’You’re, like, freakishly silent. What are you besides a doctor and sorcerer? A secret ninja? You people seem like it, you know.’’

He is silent for a few seconds, and Tony seems to be bothered enough by it to start toying with the half-finished parts laying around on the desk. His nerves seem frayed, somehow, and Stephen wonders what has happened to him to make him so jumpy. If there is any danger, he hopes Tony will feel free enough and safe enough to tell him. Stephen thinks he does, but it’s hard to tell sometimes. Tony puts down the parts and starts playing with the hem of his shirt. It’s a bit too long for him, Stephen notices, but the soft blue colour fits well with his tan.

It doesn’t seem like Tony is going to be more forthcoming, so Stephen turns away to make himself tea. There’s an old teapot in the corner of his room – he doesn’t use it often, only when he wants to calm himself down. Making tea the old-fashioned way isn’t really his thing, but it reminds him of when he first came to the Sanctum, and it always helps him relax, just watching the water boil. 

‘’Tea?’’ he asks imperturbably, as he pours himself a cup. 

He can hear Tony shuffle until he’s behind him. ‘’Earl Grey?’’ the man says, a faint whiff of humour in his voice. It feels more real than the fake rambling of earlier, and Stephen smiles to himself, even as Tony continues. ‘’That’s not so much old, Chinese, sorcerer-y tea. You got this at Tesco, didn’t you?’’

Stephen keeps a straight face. ‘’Well, there has to be something American about this,’’ he says. ‘’Can’t get more American than taking over old traditions and messing them up in our own special way.’’

‘’How unpatriotic of you,’’ Tony says, but he does sit down and take a cup. ‘’Aren’t we the greatest, forever and always?’’

Stephen shrugs, even as he blows on his tea. ‘’Patriotism takes the backseat when you’re entrusted not only with the mystical safety of the entire world, but of several dimensions besides,’’ he says wryly. ‘’Besides, I can leave and go with the snap of my fingers. Countries and distance have lost their meaning.’’

Tony already is taking a sip, but grimaces as he burns his tongue. Stephen doesn’t say anything about it, and just lets him drink it. He doesn’t seem to mind; Tony keeps going, each time making a face as the beverage burns him, but not stopping either. 

He has finished his drink before Stephen has even properly started, but he doesn’t mind. He lets his tea warm his cold hands, still blowing on it delicately. Tony puts down his own cup and scowls once again at it.

‘’You’re not a tea person, are you?’’ Stephen asks wryly.

Tony meets his eyes. ‘’I don’t really have the patience for it,’’ he admits. ‘’I usually take coffee, anyway, but I always forget about it until it’s cold.’’

Stephen makes a face even at the thought of it. He’s never been one for coffee, not even when he had long shifts at the hospital, and drinking it cold was something he’d never have done. Stephen doesn’t say anything, just focuses on the drink he’s holding. His hands are tingling from the pleasant heat, and he brings it to his lips to take the first sip. It’s perfect, and he enjoys the warmth spreading in his throat.

Tony shifts. ‘’I saw Peter today,’’ he says then. Stephen doesn’t put down his cup, but he does look at Tony, not saying a word. He doesn’t think he needs to interfere, anyway; anything Tony wants to say, will come in his own time. He’s not exactly sure who Peter is – he knows about the Avengers, and he knows Pepper Potts and James Rhodes, but he didn’t know before that Tony’s social circle was beyond that. Though it must have been, of course – one can’t be as famous and well-liked as Tony without having some friends. 

The man looks away, heaving out a sigh before leaning back. ‘’He doesn’t remember me, of course,’’ he says, some bitterness apparent. It’s not as if Stephen can blame him. ‘’He literally bumped into me – I couldn’t even breathe for a moment. Who knew, right? I’d just wanted him to give me, I don’t know. A sign of recognition. What could I have expected, honestly? He doesn’t even remember me from this morning. Not even just as the guy he ran into on his school trip this morning. I feel like such a jackass for kind of being mad that he didn’t, you know? It’s not the kid’s fault, but I just – I’m so tired of this. I miss them. I miss all of them, and they don’t even know who I am anymore. It’s like I expected there to be a me-shaped hole in their lives, and there isn’t. It’s all neatly filled up with other people and other stuff, and everything keeps going as if I was never there. And I’m glad to know that everything will be okay, you know, if anything ever happened to me. But on the other hand, I just – I don’t know.’’

‘’Want to know that you affected the people around you?’’ Stephen asks. Tony looks up to meet his eyes and nods, as if he’s afraid to admit it. Stephen smiles wryly. ‘’You have, you know. You’ve affected all of them, and their minds are filled up with lies and misdirection in the place you’re supposed to be. And you’ll be back there, if I have anything to say about it. Now, I have no idea who Peter is, but he’ll remember you.’’

Tony snorts. ‘’He’ll be mortified to know he ran into me and not be aware of it. But Peter – he’s… oh, well, you can keep a secret. He’s a teenager I enlisted – someone I mentor, I guess. He’s a great kid, wonderfully smart and capable, and I just didn’t want him to make the wrong choices. But, well, I’ve grown fond of him. Do you know Spider-Man?’’

Stephen narrows his eyes. ‘’You’re not telling me Spider-Man is a teenager?’’

Laughter is the only answer he gets, but that’s enough. Tony tells him about the boy, after; Stephen has never met him, but his admiration for the young teenager grows. He never was as considerate at that age; he’d only cared about his own future and ambitions, never mind those of others. He likes to think he’s changed, but to hear of a young hero who has never been that selfish and greedy returns in him a feeling of trust in the world.

If sixteen-year olds can be so compassionate and selfless, the world is a better place than he’d thought. Judging from Tony’s own soft expression, that belief drives him forward too. All because of a snarky teenager that managed to impress him with his kindness and strength – a sign of a caring future generation.

Stephen listens to Tony talk, and believes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed this one! Next chapter: the Avengers! I'm going to see Endgame tonight, so let's hope I won't cry myself to death in the cinema. If I survive, I'll try to post on Thursday :)


	13. Chapter 13

‘’Are you sure I need to come in?’’ he asks Wong, who seems to be torn between feeling exasperated and finding the situation funny. The situation at hand, of course, being Tony’s desperation to not see the Avengers. None of Wong’s actual feelings on it come out, but Tony likes to make guesses about these kinds of things.

Wong just eyes him, not unkindly, and shakes his head slightly. ‘’Yes,’’ he only says. ‘’I am sure.’’

‘’Right,’’ Tony says. ‘’But what if, you know, I stayed here? Would it be really that bad? I mean, I’m not much use there, anyway.’’

‘’You’re not,’’ Wong agrees, far too cheerfully.

It’s that moment that Stephen comes in, and he gives Wong a side-eyed look that Tony can’t quite comprehend the meaning of, but it looks like the Sorcerer Supreme is on his side of the debate. ‘’You need to be there, so we can see if the trace in your spell matches her magic,’’ he says. ‘’We can’t know until we compare the two. Besides, you know them better than we do. If they’re hiding something, you’ll be able to tell.’’

Tony sighs. ‘’I highly doubt any of this is necessary,’’ he tells Stephen, but the sorcerers don’t deem it worthy of a response.

Truth to be told, it’s not just that Tony doubts that the Avengers have anything to do with his curse. He’s a firm believer of the Avengers, even after all the long and difficult years and the broken trust. He knows they’re here to do good, and they do – no, he is sure they don’t have anything to do with him being forgotten. On the other hand, he’s a scientist, and he likes to verify all his facts. In theory, at least; Tony doesn’t deem himself a scientist as much as a mad engineer. Not to put labels on it.

Even if he felt the need to meet the Avengers to check if they have anything to do with it, he wouldn’t want to. It’s facing people he cares about – or used to care about, at the very least – and that won’t even know him. He wonders if Steve will be more pleasant to him or less. At this point, he’d even take Bucky tackling him to the ground, had the other super-soldier even been at the Compound. 

He’d take a full-front beating from his old team if it meant they would remember him, but they don’t. They don’t remember him, and that’s worse than anything else he could even think of.

Tony isn’t known for his pessimism, but he does feel the dreadful apprehension grow, and now it’s like it’s become a limb all by itself, slowing him down and making moving awkward. It’s beyond question that everyone in the Sanctum has picked up on his discomfort by now, but it doesn’t make the trip any less necessary, in anyone’s eyes.

He just hopes it’ll soon be over.

~*~

Stephen Strange isn’t overly familiar with the Avengers. He’s met most of them, at one point or the other, but that was never more than mindless pleasantries and short introductions. Meeting them at some point was unavoidable, at any rate. They’re all stationed in New York, and the dangers of the mystical and physical aren’t always so black-and-white. So of course he has run into them, once or twice; but it has never warranted a formal meeting.

Until now, of course.

He creates a portal that brings them to the Avengers Compound; they arrive just in front of it on the outside. There’s a crisp breeze in the chilly morning, and his Cloak settles around his arms to keep him from shivering. No such luck for his two companions; he can see the goose bumps appear on Wong’s arms, though his friend doesn’t react to the sudden cold. Tony seemingly doesn’t even try to control the shudder that goes through his body. Maybe he doesn’t even notice the cold; the pensive look on his face makes Stephen believe that Tony has worries other than the disagreeable weather.

Stephen doesn’t try to hide his skills, usually, but even so, appearing out of nowhere in the Compound seemed like a bit of an abrasive move, even for him. That’s why they walk up to the Compound instead. Stephen rings the bell and puts his hands in his pockets as he waits. Tony shifts a bit next to him, his face paler than usual and focused on the walls instead of the door.

‘’We’re here, Tony,’’ Stephen says, trying to sound considerate and trustworthy. ‘’Nothing will happen to you.’’

Tony’s eyes meet his, fleetingly, before he focuses on something else again. ‘’That’s not what I’m worried about,’’ the man mutters, but Stephen can’t comfort him any further before the door opens before them. It’s Steve Rogers himself who stands there before them, wearing a slightly rehearsed smile. It’s not unkind, but there’s a sort of wariness there that Stephen didn’t expect beforehand. Maybe this visit is a bit too much of an unexpected surprise to Rogers.

Maybe he’s just on edge. ‘’Hello there,’’ he says politely. 

Rogers nods, and steps aside to let them in. ‘’Doctor Strange,’’ he greets him. ‘’Master Wong. And?’’

There’s an expectant pause, and Stephen watches Tony. To his credit, the man doesn’t even flinch at the blank stare Rogers sends his way. ‘’Don’t mind me,’’ Tony says cheerfully. ‘’You won’t even know I’m here. Let’s just get started, right?’’

With that, he skips ahead towards where, Stephen supposes, the meeting room will be. He hasn’t been in the Compound before, and the elegance and smooth grace of the building surprise him somewhat. It’s a mix of old and new, and Stephen wonders if Tony was the one who designed it. He’s well aware who the Avengers’ main benefactor has always been, especially after SHIELD went down.

Rogers sends him a confused glance, and Stephen just shrugs. Wong takes it all in without a word, but his eyes are sharp and calculating. ‘’Keep an eye on Tony,’’ Stephen tells him, as they follow after Rogers. ‘’I don’t think he’s taking any of this well, and we need to be here for a while.’’

Wong huffs out a laugh at that. ‘’He knows how to handle himself,’’ his friend dismisses the issue easily. ‘’Besides, what are they going to do, throw us out? Look at Captain Rogers – he’s already forgotten Tony ever existed. The more difficult job is going to be explaining his presence here over and over again.’’

Stephen sighs. ‘’No chance we can put a sticky note on his forehead with my phone number on it for emergencies, is there?’’ he says wryly.

Wong looks strangely thoughtful. ‘’You never know. It might work.’’

~*~

Truth to be told, Tony needs a moment for himself. He didn’t expect being back in the Sanctum would make so many emotions rear their heads once again, but he’s spent too long here with his friends for it not to. He passes by the lab, and remembers Bruce forgetting about him there. He passes by one of the smaller training rooms, too, and tries not to think of giving Rhodey tips on how to hold himself in there.

Being so far ahead of Stephen and Wong probably isn’t the greatest idea, but he needs to regain his composure. Not that it matters. Even if he breaks down in front of his friends, it’s not like they’ll remember it. He can leave the room for half a minute and start over, clean slate. 

It’s not as nice a thought as he’d hoped.

Still, he takes a few deep breaths in the corridor and then leans casually against the wall, waiting for Steve to come with Stephen and Wong. His heart thumps loudly against his chest, but Tony has played parts before the media all his life. Normally, the people he is about to face would be able to tell that he’s just playing pretend, but now – now they don’t know any of his tells; they don’t know who he is at all. He can act like they mean nothing to him, and they’ll do the same, but they’ll actually mean it.

He’s completely fine. He manages to smirk at Steve as the super-soldier visibly startles upon seeing him. ‘’Who-‘’ he starts, but Stephen comes between them.

‘’He’s with us,’’ the Sorcerer says in a tone that brooks no argument. Steve stares at him for a few moments, frowning, before he accepts it, and wordlessly walks them into the meeting room.

Tony tries his hardest not to freeze at the sight of all the Avengers in one room. He scans their faces, all so familiar to him – everyone has gotten together. Steve turns to face him, and already sitting there is Natasha, her eyes ever unreadable. Next to her is Rhodey, and that’s maybe the biggest stab in his heart of all, to see his lifelong friend sitting there so seriously, without a hint of recognition in his face. Bruce is there as well, a well-known frown gracing his face, and there’s Sam, Wanda and Vision.

Tony is so busy taking them all in, he almost misses the widening of Vision’s gaze. His attention is drawn to him when Vision stands up, leaning forward almost imperceptibly as he looks at Tony in astonishment.

‘’Mr Stark,’’ Vision says, as if lost for words. ‘’I’m tremendously happy to see you are okay. Whatever happened to you?’’

Wanda turns to Vision with an astonished look on her face. ‘’Vis? You know that guy?’’

Vision is still staring at a speechless Tony Stark, even as he answers her. ‘’Somehow, I’m the only one who does.’’

~*~

‘’Let me get this straight,’’ Sam Wilson says, waving his hands around as if he has a hard time believing it. He probably does, Tony reflects. It’s not exactly an everyday event they’ve told everyone about. ‘’This man, Tony Stark, is one of our former team members and we know him all very well, but he’s been cursed, and now we don’t remember him at all? Do you realize how that sounds? Shouldn’t we, I don’t know, have gaps in our memories?’’

‘’You do have gaps,’’ Stephen says firmly. ‘’You’ve filled them up with other things. It’s how the spell works, Mr Wilson. Besides, how else would you explain Vision remembering?’’

‘’How do we explain Vision remembering, in fact?’’ Tony asks. He ignores everyone’s intent gazes – the truth of his situation makes him slightly uncomfortable. Or maybe it’s not that, but the pity that is in those looks. 

Stephen frowns. ‘’It’s an older spell, judging by the book we found its name in,’’ he answers slowly. ‘’Evidently, it’s not one that works on non-humans.’’

‘’FRIDAY remembered me, too,’’ Tony remembers. ‘’Though Pepper shut her off, so I’m not sure she would have in the end. If that’s true, though, she probably does.’’

‘’Who’s FRIDAY?’’ Rhodey asks. ‘’What does Pepper have to do with anything?’’

There’s dozens of things that Tony wants to say to that. _She’s the woman of my dreams, and you stole her. She’s the love of my life, and she doesn’t know who I am. She’s the one I was going to marry, until this pesky curse and you came in between. She is the reason I’m the man I am today, and now I’m going to lose her forever, and I always feared I would, but I didn’t think it'd be like this. Never like this._

Then Stephen puts a hand on his shoulder, and the accusing thoughts fade, though the bitter feelings remain. ‘’FRIDAY is my AI,’’ he answers eventually. ‘’I lived in Stark Tower, before…. Before. Pepper must’ve forgotten about it and taken FRIDAY offline. I didn’t manage to get her back up running before I was chased out of the building.’’

_By you_ , he doesn’t add, but he remembers keenly.

‘’None of this is the point,’’ Stephen says. ‘’The point is that one of your team members has been cursed, and we’ve been going around uselessly trying to figure out who it is. Tony only knows one magic-user who dislikes him, and it may be a long shot, but it’s time to put it all out in the open. We may need one another yet, the Sanctum and the Avengers, and we need to know you didn’t actually curse him.’’

Everyone turns to Wanda, at that moment. She stills in her seat. ‘’Me?’’ she says. ‘’I don’t even know who he is! Why would I have cursed him?’’

Tony groans and stands up. Sitting down has never been his strong point, and this only proves it. He shares a short look with Stephen before leaning against the wall. ‘’I don’t think that it’s you,’’ he says. ‘’Frankly, I don’t see why you would. Stephen wants to be sure, and at this point, I’ve been walking around for months without a soul knowing who I am. I just want to make sure, and then we can all be on our way. You’ll have forgotten I exist in under ten seconds and I’ll try to forget the whole encounter too. Winners all around, right?’’

‘’There’s no way to rid you of this curse?’’ Vision asks, looking between Wanda and Tony with a worried gaze. ‘’You know Wanda hasn’t done this, Tony. It’s lunacy to even consider it.’’

‘’It’s not lunacy,’’ Wong intervenes before anyone else can. ‘’It’s called being a realist. This man has been surviving under a curse too horrid for you to even contemplate, and we do not have many options left. Let us check the woman, and everything will be sorted. If she hasn’t done it, she has nothing to fear.’’

Vision clearly wants to argue some more, but Wanda stops him with a hand on his arm. Some wordless communication passes between them, and she stands up too, nodding her consent. ‘’I’m not sure what reason I would have to hate Tony Stark,’’ she says slowly, ‘’but if this will prove that I didn’t curse him, that’s what we’ll do. I don’t have anything to lose.’’

Tony watches Stephen walk over to her, as the entire room watches on in silence. ‘’It’s an easy and painless process,’’ the Sorcerer Supreme says, his eyes fixed on hers. Tony focuses on the glow of magic that comes from Stephen’s hands as he explains to Wanda what exactly she needs to do. It only takes a minute, and her red magic clashes with Stephen’s greenish spell for no more than a few seconds before they dissolve and disappear.

Stephen frowns for a moment.

‘’Well?’’ Steve says after a heartbeat. ‘’Wanda?’’

Stephen answers instead. ‘’She didn’t do it,’’ he says, but he doesn’t look away from her face. ‘’Your power, it’s – different. But it’s exceptionally powerful. Can you control it?’’

Wanda takes a deep breath. ‘’Sometimes,’’ she replies. ‘’Not always. It’s why I’m not a full-time member of the Avengers, at the moment. Vision tries to help me, but it wants to get out in unexpected ways sometimes.’’

‘’The Sanctum can help you with that. If you want to, of course. We have a great number of students who are learning magic, and there’ll be other Masters to help, too. It’s a gift you shouldn’t let go to waste.’’

‘’Right,’’ Tony says, sceptically. He feels something in his heart twist at the slightly astounded expression on Stephen’s face, like he can’t quite believe what he just felt of Wanda’s power. It’s not that he doesn’t want him to help Wanda, it’s just that – well, they haven’t exactly been friends, during the short time Tony and she were acquainted. She never let it go unnoticed how much she disliked him, and part of that tension – and of course the fall-out between Steve and him – were part of the reason for leaving the permanent roster of the Avengers. And now Stephen is kind of his only hope, and it’s just –

Well. He’s not sure what to name it. It’s not quite jealousy, but it’s not quite anything else either. He doesn’t have any right to Stephen’s friendship, more than anyone else, or any say on who to focus his attention. He’s just needy and he doesn’t have anyone else.

Everyone turns to him, and he just stares back defiantly until Bruce squints at him and says, ‘’Who are you again?’’

Tony is nailed to the ground for a few seconds, as the blank stares all return. ‘’Great,’’ he says, feeling a nasty kind of resentment come up. ‘’Have fun for the rest of the meeting. I’m going to catch some air, as long as I don’t get kicked out of the building again.’’

With that, he stomps out of the room. The door behind him falls closed with a loud bang, and he waits outside for a few moments. He doesn’t know why; maybe a part of him wants them to go after him, wants someone to care enough to follow him outside.

The other, louder part of him is too angry to want to be comforted and walks off. His feet steer him towards the smaller lab, one that was only Tony’s, without thinking about it. It’s just as well, probably; none of the Avengers will think to look for him here – won’t think of him at all, besides – and Stephen and Wong don’t know the building well enough to know this part of it. 

His code to enter the room still works, unsurprisingly. The lights go on as soon as he comes in. He lets his finger travel around the desk, leaving thin trails in the dust that has gathered there. 

The lab, though not his main one, is still cluttered with some of his things. Abandoned projects, loose parts, scattered all around. He misses inventing; he misses verbally sparring with his AIs and spending days on thinking of new ideas and innovations. He misses the feeling of something new taking shape because of him.

An idea takes him, then. His newest suit is here – it’s still in part of the corner, hidden behind the glass. It doesn’t look like much, compared to his others. It’s only a black hoodie, covering an unassuming doll. Once again, he enters the code, and once again, he is let in wordlessly. His hands glide over the material, smooth and soft, before pulling it off the doll and putting it on.

With a single tap on his arc reactor, the nano-technology is activated and the suit surrounds him, building itself up part by part, elegantly covering his body. The screen loads before his eyes, and he lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. FRIDAY is offline, so it’s silent, but this is much more than he had before.

He’s still Iron Man. He can still have his suit.

Tony doesn’t know how long he’s standing there, but it can’t have been that long. Still, it feels like the entire world has shifted by the time he deactivates the suit again, and everything folds back into the hoodie. He isn’t as helpless, not relying on others as much, when he has it.

He remembers the first time he flied, and knowing that he has his suit again feels just as good as flying did back then.

No matter who will remember him or not, at least he’ll remember who he is, and that’s the most important thing.

~*~

Stephen feels rather troubled by Tony’s sudden exit, but when they find him only thirty minutes later, it’s as if nothing happened. The man looks calm, but maybe he is just pretending. Still, he doesn’t look as bothered as he did when he stormed out of the meeting room. 

Wong shoots him a look, clearly to tell him that he said so. Stephen would’ve followed Tony, had Wong not stopped him. Maybe it’s true that Tony just needed to blow off some steam; it can’t have been easy, facing his old team like that, and seeing them forget about him again just as easily once the focus was off him for more than a few seconds.

He looks fine now, though. ‘’What’s with the hoodie?’’ Wong asks him. Stephen hardly noticed it before, but now he sees it, too; Tony is wearing something that he wasn’t before.

Tony just shrugs. ‘’It was mine, and I was cold,’’ is all he says.

Stephen accepts it, and they return to the Sanctum with an alliance richer.


	14. Chapter 14

Tony doesn’t tell anyone about his suit. He can’t explain why he doesn’t; it’s just a gut feeling that he follows. 

Maybe it’s because he’s still upset with Stephen, honestly. Not that he’ll tell that to the Sorcerer Supreme. Tony is well aware that he doesn’t have any valid reason to be as distant and cold with Stephen as he is the following days, but then again, he’s never needed a reason before. It feels like some kind of vindication, despite none of it making sense. Besides, it’s not as if he never sees Stephen anymore; he’s just grown a bit more… well, mean, perhaps. 

Even if Tony doesn’t have a legit reason to be mad at Stephen for picking Wanda as a personal student, he can’t help but feel somewhat ignored. So he ignores Stephen in turn, as much as he can; and Stephen only seems to accept Tony’s anger and is determined to get through to him, talking to him in much the same way he used to before. It only makes Tony feel worse, being as withdrawn as he is.

So Tony mainly sits with Master Brown and Master Chen during dinner and lunch; he spends his days pouring over either his suit or over the device. He only lets Stephen assist when he needs him to, and then proceeds to not pay attention to anything that Stephen is saying. There’s a tenseness growing between them, and he’s not oblivious to it. Then again, if Wanda is coming over to become one of Stephen’s students, it may be for the best Tony isn’t there as much. He doubts Wanda would appreciate his presence, had she remembered him. And the plan is still for him to be remembered, someday. 

He stays away, and Stephen comes to find him less and less often on his own accord, and Tony accepts that it’s for the better to not become too close friends, anyway.

His friends will remember him again soon, and then it’ll be like nothing ever happened.

~*~

It’s a few days later that Tony finishes the sensor. He doesn’t quite believe it himself, as it’s done; he stares at it. It doesn’t look very magic or mystical, but it’ll do the job anyway. He’s been working for days on this, mostly by himself when he could manage it; it’s hard to believe that it’s done. It’s not anything that has been created before, and here it is, sitting before him.

It’s clear that Tony hasn’t been using the best equipment; it’s a bit sloppier than if he would’ve been in his own lab, but it’ll do the job. Besides, it feels great to create something again. He always gets a bit restless if he can’t work with his hands – Tony has always needed the distraction. He’s created so many things, and it’s not the first ground-breaking development he’s made, but – it’s new. It is science and magic, combined in a way that has never been seen before, and he can’t help but feel proud.

Still, even as he regards the small sensor on the desk, he feels a stab of something else. It’s not just his work that has been completed here – it’s Stephen’s as much as his. He remembers working on it together, before going to the Compound. He’d liked it. Tony doesn’t often allow people in his working space, and there’s very few exceptions. Bruce, Peter, sometimes Vision. But working with Stephen was different, and seeing him work was exhilarating. 

He sighs, and turns around in his chair. He knows he’s being inane, ignoring Stephen as he’s doing. There’s not even a good reason for doing it. Still, he can’t quite let go of the disappointment of Stephen actually forgetting about him – not even because of a curse, this time. Being thrown aside in favour of a woman who, once upon a time, would have put a lot of effort into punishing Tony for a crime he didn’t commit. 

It’s different, now, of course. But the feelings remain, and feelings are something Tony doesn’t try to think about and just rolls with. It’s easier that way. Unless, of course, he’s only isolating himself from the few people than can actually help him and for some reason even seem to like him.

Not that Tony hasn’t shown self-destructive tendencies before.

Mind made up, Tony rises from his chair and wanders the Sanctum. He grabs some food in the kitchen and searches several rooms, but doesn’t find a sign of Stephen. He’s not in the library either, but someone else familiar is.

‘’Can I help you?’’ Wong asks dryly, looking up from the several tomes he has lying before him. As far as Tony can see, they’re in several different languages, and he shakes his head at it before looking back at the Master.

‘’Yep,’’ he says, and pops the ‘p’ even as he leans forward. ‘’I’m looking for Stephen. Happen to know where he is?’’

Wong leans forward in return. ‘’I’m not his keeper,’’ he says, and then returns to his reading, Tony seemingly dismissed.

Tony doesn’t let it dissuade him. ‘’Right,’’ he says. ‘’Got it. Hey, in that case, what are you reading? I finished some of those Mandarin books, back in Hong Kong, though I definitely needed some Google Translate. Do you just happen to know all these languages? You could use a translator, maybe. I’m not sure how long everyone’s going to keep putting effort into knowing languages when basically everything can be translated online, anyway. Besides, it’s America, who even speaks another language than English anymore? No, I mean it –‘’

‘’First turn to the right, third door on your left,’’ Wong says, not even looking up. ‘’Please go away. You win this round.’’

‘’I always do,’’ Tony tells him cheerfully, and then he’s on his way. The corridor he’s passing through are empty; usually, he always finds some people walking around in the Sanctum, but not in this part. It makes him wonder what’s here, or if it’s some part that people aren’t usually allowed to go. It only piques his interest, and when he reaches the door that Wong told him Stephen would be behind, he halts.

Before he can change his mind again, he knocks on the door. There isn’t an answer for some time, and just as Tony wants to decide between leaving or knocking again, it opens. Stephen frowns upon seeing him, and Tony manages a sincere grin, hopefully conveying some of what he’s trying to say, even if he himself doesn’t quite know what that is.

‘’Tony,’’ Stephen says, and his face smoothens. ‘’Is there anything wrong?’’

‘’Au contraire, my friend,’’ Tony says, faking an easy confidence. ‘’I’ve got some good news. The sensor is finished. Want to take it for a test ride?’’

Stephen doesn’t narrow his eyes, but it’s a near thing. He’s silent for a few moments, before opening the door further. ‘’I’m almost done here,’’ he says. ‘’Come on in and then we’ll test it. When did you finish it, exactly?’’

Tony comes in and settles himself on a very comfortable-looking couch. It’s only a small room, with a bluish-green globe floating in between of it. Small lights swirl on it, and he watches it, enraptured. Three larger dots of light swirl; it varies between red and gold and green and everything in between. Besides the globe, there’s only a small wooden desk and a few books in the room. ‘’Just now,’’ he says, still staring at the globe. ‘’Hey, what is this place? You have your own Chamber of Secrets? Please don’t tell me there’s a giant snake hiding in here somewhere.’’

Stephen snorts at that, and turns towards the globe. He points at the larger spots. ‘’These three marks are the Sanctum,’’ he explains easily, his voice smooth and low. The small lights on the globe cast a faint light on his pale face, and are mirrored in his eyes. ‘’They have a connection to each other, and that connection is constantly being affirmed. The Sanctums keep the world and all its dimensions safe from threats. My job as Sorcerer Supreme is to make sure that all Sanctums are kept intact and to check for threats. I have a danger-list, and I need to ascertain that the Sanctums are safe daily. The lights tell me what to look for.’’

Tony stares in fascination. ‘’So, what does it tell you? How comprehensive is this?’’

Stephen smiles, and his fingers linger on the dot that signifies the New York Sanctum. Tony can see once again the faint scars on his hands. ‘’Not every danger is to be found on this globe,’’ he says, and lets his finger fall again. ‘’Many of them aren’t, in fact. That’s why we always need to be vigilant. But we will know that the Sanctums are intact, and as long as the Sanctums stand together, we can protect Earth. That, I believe wholeheartedly.’’

Tony is silent for a moment. ‘’If you could prevent the dangers,’’ he asks quietly. ‘’If you’d seen things, and feared something coming. If you could change it, would you?’’

He thinks back on Ultron, sometimes. He’s never sure if it was the wrong choice or the right one, but he knows that he would always do anything to protect the world as long as it’s in his power. 

Stephen turns to him. ‘’We can’t,’’ he says simply. ‘’That’s the simple truth of it. If I could – well. No one has that power. No one has that responsibility, either. Saving the world – it’s not just up to you or me, Tony. We all do our bit, and we hope it all ends well in the end. If we could prevent all bad things, I’d be all for it. But it’s not our responsibility, not all of it, and thinking we can will only lead to bad things happening.’’

‘’You’re right. But does that mean we shouldn’t try?’’

The sorcerer seems to be turning it over in his head. He smiles – only slightly. ‘’It doesn’t,’’ he says. ‘’And none of what happened on Earth is your fault, either, Tony. You saved a lot of people, and that’s what matters, in the end. You can’t save everyone.’’

‘’We can try,’’ Tony states. ‘’We should try, right?’’

‘’I swore an oath,’’ Stephen replies. ‘’When I became a doctor. I swore I wouldn’t harm anyone. I’m still trying to save everyone I can. My oath as a doctor interferes with some of the things I’ve seen as a Sorcerer Supreme. The world isn’t as black and white as all that. If we can save someone, we should. If we can prevent something from happening, we should. But if we don’t manage to save someone, it’s not necessarily our fault. It’s not the same as not trying.’’

They’re silent for a while, and Stephen returns to his work with the globe. Tony just watches on, and feels something quietly settle in his stomach.

~*~

‘’We can’t be sure that it works until we find Derrick Price with it,’’ Stephen says thoughtfully, staring at the small device in front of him. Tony’s standing next to him, drumming with his fingers on his own arm. He doesn’t even seem to notice he’s doing it, his dark eyes sharply focused on the sensor.

‘’Theoretically, it should work,’’ Tony says. There’s a slight scowl on his face, and his hair is a mess of curls. He looks somewhat like a mad scientist, and the sorcerer smiles at the quiet realization. The slightly longer hair does suit him.

Stephen turns back to the small sensor and takes it in hand. It feels different from a usual device, and it thrums with something mystical. ‘’It’s all just a theory until it’s tested,’’ he answers. ‘’I should test it out. See if I can find anything.’’

‘’And if it doesn’t work?’’ Tony reacts.

Stephen shrugs. ‘’Then we’ll be back where we started. We can’t be sure, but we can try, at least.’’

Tony is silent for a while. ‘’And what if it does work?’’

The engineer’s gaze is unreadable, but there’s something open and kind in his expression. Stephen doesn’t know why Tony has been distant the past few days, but he doesn’t think it’s because Tony has had enough of the Sanctum, or of Stephen’s friendship. It’s quiet and easy, and at moments like these, it’s clear that Tony cares, at least.

‘’Then it’ll work, and we can be prepared,’’ Stephen says, shoulders straight. His Cloak smoothens itself out, as if to work up courage. He tugs at it with his left hand, and it relaxes again. Tony is still watching him when Stephen looks back. ‘’We’ll have what we wanted, and more, besides. It’s protection, and it may provide us with more answers.’’

‘’We’ve never discussed what we’ll do if we find them.’’

Tony’s voice is steady, but his words betray his uncertainty. Stephen takes a step closer to put a hand on the man’s shoulder. ‘’We’ll be ready,’’ he says kindly. ‘’They’re not expecting us to find them. They don’t know we have this, they don’t know we have a sensor to know when they’re close. Or well, when one of them is close.’’

‘’It’s a risk,’’ Tony says, but he relaxes marginally.

Stephen grins at him. ‘’Well. Where would we be in life without a little risk?’’

~*~

He takes out the sensor, afterwards, to scour some streets. It doesn’t pick up a signal, but Stephen doesn’t let it bother him. It’s always been a long shot, but they have something, now. Things should go in their favour from now on – he doesn’t worry overly much about not finding anything, especially because he hasn’t been nearly everywhere yet.

He walks around with the sensor in his pockets daily now, just out of habit. It’s small enough not to be noticeable, but it remains quiet. 

Stephen doesn’t have the time to search all the city, but he takes whatever time he has for it. He doesn’t want to ask another sorcerer to do it, even if Wong starts looking worried about him missing meals and cutting sleep. It’s nothing he can’t handle, and it’s not as if he doesn’t sleep or eat at all. It’s just that the safety of his Sanctum and everyone in it has priority. He wants the entire situation to come to an end; he wants to be able to lift the curse of Tony, who deserves more than such a miserable situation, and he wants to know what happened to the sorcerers of his and Wright’s Sanctum, and he wants to know who attacked his people.

~*~

‘’Eat out,’’ Tony repeats to him. ‘’You know, it’s a thing that people do when they’re lazy and don’t feel like eating anything they have already bought? Look, it’s all on me considering I’m the one with actual money out of all of us.’’

Stephen feels like he should protest to that. ‘’We of the Sanctum are above the material,’’ he says instead.

Wong beside him looks at him. ‘’You stole my excuse.’’

He expects Tony’s snort when it comes, and can’t help but chuckle in return. ‘’Keep telling yourselves that. Anyway, I’m grateful you’re giving me food. I love food, it keeps me alive, but c’mon, Stephen – is rice necessary every day? It reeks of lack of creativity. Giving people the same food every day feels like some sort of, I don’t know, what do we call it? It’s not healthy, is it, not a balanced diet, and it’s of utmost importance –‘’

‘’You just monologue people into agreeing with you, don’t you?’’ Stephen interrupts him.

Tony looks affronted for a long second, before his face splits out into a mischievous grin. ‘’Only if it’s working.’’

‘’Fine,’’ Stephen agrees, and rolls his eyes at Tony’s victory dance. ‘’What do you want?’’

‘’American cheeseburger,’’ the man responds immediately. His glee is almost childlike, and it’s very infectious. 

‘’I’ll pass,’’ Wong retorts. ‘’I’ve already eaten. I’m helping Master Haman with his class soon.’’

‘’I’ll just go,’’ he says. ‘’I’ll be back in a few minutes.’’

With that, he creates a portal in a back alley near a McDonalds. It’s been a long while since he has had any greasy food, and he looks forward to indulging in the died-out habit. It’s nostalgia at this point; he hasn’t eaten burgers in – well, it’s been a long while. Stephen hums the refrain of _I Want To Break Free_ to himself, and in his cheer, almost misses it.

The faint sound of a beeping.

He just comes out of the back alley when he hears it – he frowns for a second, thinking it’s someone else, but in a few seconds, it becomes clear the sound is coming from him. It hits him at once and he takes out the sensor. It’s working. It’s _beeping_.

That can only mean Derrick Price is here somewhere, and perhaps whoever he’s involved with, too.

He clutches the small device, looking at it. It’s not a moment he’d expected to find anything – he wasn’t even thinking about the possibility of it, until he ended up here. In the momentary haze, he’s not even sure where he is – he’d just created a portal to the first McDonalds that he could think of. It’s somewhere near the Metro-General, he thinks. He vaguely remembers going with Christine, after some long and difficult operation. 

Maybe that was the last time he’d ever been, but maybe not. It’s also not anything that matters, at the moment. 

He spurts into action as he moves around the street, not heeding anyone who is in his path. He must look like a madman, with his strange wardrobe and following the beeping of a small device, but it’s New York – all he gets is an annoyed look and complaining murmurs too soft to hear, before everyone’s on their way again. It’s a sensor, still, not a tracker, so Stephen has to find his way by trial and error. Still, it seems he’s on the right track, and he turns it off when he finds an older building, seemingly abandoned. With a simple spell, however, he finds the accumulation of Mystic energies and traces – that of Derrick Price among them.

The door is hidden well – Stephen finds it only by accident, his eyes slowly growing accustomed to the dark corner in an alley. Not even a street away, dozens of New Yorkers pass by every second, unaware of who are in the building here. He contemplates his next move. He’s not sure of how many sorcerers will be in there. He should get Wong, at the very least, and probably all the other Masters too. Perhaps he can send word to Wright too; here’s an opportunity for the Master of the London Sanctum to help out with the issue.

He has just resolved to return to the Sanctum at once when the door opens, and Stephen freezes where he stands. For one second, his eyes meet those of the redheaded woman – then she yells out something and Stephen summons his shields. 

Within the second, a dozen sorcerers are onto him. Stephen raises his shields to protect himself from the onslaught of spells that fly around his ears, and it’s only strength of will and desperate determination that keep him standing. A magenta whip finds its way around his ankle, and he falls down with a thud. He responds immediately with a blast, and three of the people looming over him disappear from his view as they fly back with the force of his spell. He doesn’t get the time to get back up, though – something heavy hits his head, and Stephen closes his eyes as the sudden feeling of nausea goes through him.

With a concentration he doesn’t feel anymore, he reaches out his arm in the general direction of his attackers and conjures up a weapon. His Cloak slips off his shoulders to charge at someone else from where he managed to half-sit, and Stephen blindly stabs at whoever comes to him first. He hears a cry of pain before it’s Stephen again who is blown away, and something hits his shoulder. He hears an audible crack and a faint groan, uncertain if it’s his own or someone else’s. 

Something sharp pierces his side, at that moment, and he lets out a scream in agony. Someone else is screaming too – commands, a piercing voice, but Stephen doesn’t want to wait to figure out what is going on or what is being said. His Cloak comes back to him, wrapping itself around his side. With the last bit of energy he has, he focuses his energy on his spells. With one hand, he lets a dark, glittering wall rise up between him and his attackers. It won’t last for long, but in the meantime, he desperately forces a stuttering portal to appear. He crawls towards it with his last energy, the rough ground below him scraping his elbows and hands. He’s not even sure where it is that he’s going to end up, and he doesn’t have time to care.

With a last pained howl, Stephen settles against a grimy wall in a dark alley somewhere he can’t remember ever seeing, and prays no one managed to follow him through the portal.

The blood drops steadily on the filthy concrete.

Stephen wounded by [kayfullcolor](https://kayfullcolor.tumblr.com//)


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter received some wonderful art from [kayfullcolor](http://www.kayfullcolor.tumblr.com)! You can see it on tumblr or just go back to last chapter, where I put the art at the end :) Thanks again, I adore it!

Tony shuffles around the book before him and pretends to be reading out of it. He feels uneasy – it’s been thirty minutes since Stephen left. He should be back by now, and the feeling nags at him, biting through his resolve.

He reminds himself that Stephen is the Sorcerer Supreme, and that he can handle himself. He’s powerful and has a quick mind; undoubtedly he can handle anything that’s thrown at him. Besides, Tony doesn’t even know for certain if anything _has_ happened. So he sits, and waits, and the tenseness grows inside him, but he doesn’t know what to do.

Just as he thinks he should find Wong and ask him what might be taking Stephen so long, something crashes into the window and Tony jumps up. The chair scrapes along the floor as Tony stands up immediately, eyes wide as he sees the Cloak trying to get his attention.

‘’Shit,’’ he says, and opens the window as quickly as he can. The Cloak moves around the room frantically, and Tony barely has time to understand what it means to communicate. ‘’Hey, hey, calm down, you need to – wait. Is that – blood?’’

The Cloak does calm down, only enough for Tony to understand that it’s doing the cloak-equivalent of nodding. Tony takes a deep breath. Sometimes must be wrong with Stephen, but the Cloak can’t talk, and Tony can’t help until he knows where Stephen is and what is wrong with him. ‘’Okay. Is it Stephen’s blood?’’ Another nod from the Cloak. Tony feels his own blood run cold. ‘’Right. I’m going to get Wong right now, and then you’re going to lead us to where he is, right?’’

The Cloak manages another agitated nod, and then winds itself around Tony’s wrist, pulling him along. Tony stumbles and almost loses his footing, but the Cloak slows down somewhat as it notices that things will not exactly be going faster if Tony falls on his face and breaks his nose. Tony lets the Cloak lead him, which seemingly knows better where he’s supposed to get Wong than he himself does. It may be true – he knows that Wong’s teaching, but he’s not sure where. He can feel the dried blood on the Cloak, and his dread only grows. 

It’s not even two minutes before he falls through the door, and he finds a number of surprised eyes on him, Wong and Master Haman among them.

‘’Wong,’’ Tony croaks, and the Cloak releases its grip on his wrist but starts pointing back at the door. ‘’We have to find Stephen. Now.’’

‘’What’s going on?’’ Master Haman demands, looking between Tony, Wong and the Cloak. ‘’Where is Master Strange?’’

‘’In trouble,’’ Tony snaps. ‘’Now, come _on_ , we don’t have time for this! He’s injured, he’s bleeding out somewhere, we have to find him!’’

‘’Stay here and guard the Sanctum,’’ Wong tells Haman, his tone clipped. His face is solemn and determined. ‘’ I will find Master Strange and bring him to safety. You’ll hear from us soon.’’

He doesn’t even wait for a reaction as he follows the Cloak, leaving behind a group full of stunned students and a worried Master Haman. Tony runs after him. ‘’Can you, I don’t know, track him or something?’’ Tony asks. ‘’Create a portal to where he is?’’

‘’It’s not that easy,’’ Wong answers, and his voice doesn’t have the authoritative quality that it had only a few seconds ago; agitated worry for his friend has slipped into it, and if Tony had ever wondered how much Wong cares, he would know now. ‘’I should have put a spell on Stephen before for that to work, and there’s nothing I can use to find out his location. We have to follow the Cloak.’’

‘’What if he’s on the other side of New York? What if he’s not even in New York anymore? We can’t just go out running in the wild.’’

Wong turns to him. ‘’Calm down. The Cloak came to find us, so he can’t be too far away. We don’t know the danger has passed yet, so you need to stay here.’’

‘’I’m coming,’’ Tony reacts vehemently. ‘’No – don’t argue this. We don’t have time for it. Look, I’ll be forgotten – I’ll slip my way around it if there’s enemies there. Besides, if there are, you could use the help. _Also_ , we need to move. Pronto.’’

It’s clear that Wong doesn’t seem convinced, and he stares at Tony for a long second. ‘’Fine,’’ he says eventually. ‘’You can drive.’’ With that, he throws a key towards Tony, who catches it with some confusion.

‘’You guys have a _car_?’’ he says, but then the Cloak starts tugging at him again, and he follows it and Wong to the small blue Ford that stands surreptitiously parked on the street. He starts it up, and Wong gets in in the passenger seat while the Cloak starts guiding them. Tony starts the car and starts following, driving a bit faster than he’s supposed to.

‘’For emergencies like these,’’ Wong responds, and he doesn’t say anything about Tony’s breaking the laws of traffic. Perhaps he feels just as anxious as Tony is; he can feel the blood pumping in his ears, and his hands are stark white with how desperately he’s gripping the wheel. All he can think about is the blood on the frantic Cloak, and he thinks about Stephen.

He can only hope they’re not too late. 

~*~

Tony’s following the main road until the Cloak takes a sharp dive into a different street, and he can hear some cars honking at him as he takes the turn a bit too suddenly and too quickly. He honks back. ‘’Fuck this,’’ he says. ‘’Can’t they see I’m following a flying Cloak? It’s clearly _an emergency_!’’ 

The last bit he yells at a yellow car that passes by, whose driver flips them the bird. Tony ignores it and keeps driving – he has more things to worry about than rude gestures from obese men who want to be home five minutes earlier by cutting off everyone else. The Cloak goes quicker, now, clearly driven on by the emergency of the situation. It takes a few more sharp turns, until it ducks into a dark alley that Tony wouldn’t have seen but for the fact that the Cloak just disappeared into it.

Tony unceremoniously parks the car at the side of the road. It’s probably prohibited, but there aren’t a lot of people walking around. Wong is out of the car before he is, and Tony runs to follow him. He lets out a sharp gasp when he sees the slumped figure on the ground; Wong is beside him on the ground in a matter of moments, grabbing Stephen’s wrist and feeling for his pulse.

Tony crouches next to him, and takes Stephen’s face, mindful of the cuts marring it. ‘’Stephen?’’ he says anxiously. ‘’Hey, Stephen, wake up. Stephen!’’

‘’He’s alive,’’ Wong states with a sigh of relief. ‘’Look – his stomach.’’ 

Tony looks down. There’s some blood drying on the ground, and it has come from the haggard wound in Stephen’s stomach. Something has clearly pierced him, there, and his clothes are torn and dirty. ‘’We need to get him to a hospital,’’ he says. 

Wong nods grimly. ‘’Metro-General Hospital,’’ he answers. ‘’We need to ask for Christine Palmer – she’ll be able to help him better than anyone else.’’

‘’Why’s that?’’ Tony asks, trying to remember if he’d ever heard her name before. He doesn’t think he has, and wonders who she is.

Wong is already creating a portal, and the orange sparks flying from it lighten up the alley. It only manages to make Stephen look paler than he already is. ‘’Stephen went to her for help before. She knows about the situation.’’

‘’Wait. This specific situation, or just the entire sorcerer-situation?’’

Wong gives him an odd look. ‘’The latter. Now, come. Help me steady him.’’ Wong lifts Stephen with a flick of his thumbs, the Sorcerer Supreme floating up into the air, and Tony hovers behind them as they enter the portal, ready to catch the sorcerer for if he happens to fall or wake up. He feels helpless – he can’t do anything for Stephen but get him the help he needs. 

They enter a hospital, and Tony notices it more because of the smell than because it looks like a hospital. It’s some sort of closet they’re in, and Wong slowly lowers Stephen. Tony steadies the limp body of the Sorcerer Supreme, regarding the still sluggishly bleeding wound as he bites his lip. Wong sits down beside him, a similar look of worry on his face. ‘’Find Christine Palmer,’’ he says. ‘’Bring her here while I stay here with Stephen. Be quick.’’

‘’Yes – yeah, I’m going,’’ Tony says, and he rises hurriedly. At the other side of the door, outside the storage room, the hospital is lively and bright, with nurses and doctors and patients passing by. He adjusts to the light for a second before blinking, stopping every member of staff he sees to ask for Christine Palmer. She’s on a shift, it seems, but the first two don’t know where to find her. It’s only the third person he asks, a young nurse, who can tell him where Christine Palmer is.

All in all, it’s a good ten minutes before Tony manages to storm into a small room, clearly meant for breaks and relaxation. ‘’Can I help you?’’ a pretty woman asks, frowning at the blood on Tony’s arms and clothes.

‘’Not unless you’re Christine Palmer,’’ he answers, heart beating fast from his short sprint up and down the stairs to get to the break room he’s in now. Or perhaps it’s just anxiety for Stephen.

She tilts her head. Her brown hair is up in a neat bun, and her eyes are keen and sharp. ‘’That’s me,’’ she says. She seems like a woman who is used to getting people to listen to her, and Tony doesn’t doubt he’ll be thrown out in a second if he doesn’t convince her to come with him.

‘’It’s Stephen Strange,’’ he says. ‘’He’s – well. Stabbed? That’s our diagnosis, but we’re not doctors. Wong told me to look for you, he said – are you coming?’’

She laughs disbelievingly, even as she folds her arms. ‘’Stephen Strange?’’ she asks. ‘’You’re kidding, right? You must be kidding.’’

‘’If there’s one thing I’m not, it’s that. Look – he’s bleeding, I don’t know how much blood he’s lost already, you have to help him.’’

Christine is silent for a moment, then she shakes her head and mutters something indistinguishable to herself, grabbing her white doctor’s coat. ‘’Lead the way,’’ she says. 

Tony does, remembering the several corridors and stairs he took. Christine follows, clearly not knowing how to feel about the situation. She doesn’t say a word to him, as Tony leads her to the door to the tiny storage room. Wong is still sitting there, murmuring something to Stephen. He looks up as they enter, but Christine doesn’t have eyes for him, as she falls to her knees besides Stephen.

‘’Oh my god,’’ she whispers. ‘’Oh my – okay, okay. Give me some room, let me check on him. How long has it been since you found him?’’

‘’About fifteen minutes,’’ Wong answers. ‘’He’s lost a lot of blood. We don’t know when exactly he was injured – he left around an hour ago and never came back.’’

Christine take a shuddering breath, and then the resolve sets in. Tony can see her eyes sharpen and her shoulders straighten. ‘’Let me see the wound,’’ she says, and Wong moves. The Cloak is wrapped around Stephen’s injury, though, applying pressure to the unconscious man’s wound. It seems uncertain about moving, until Tony coaxes it from Stephen’s side. It’s wet with blood, but Tony doesn’t mind as the Cloak settles on his own shoulders instead. Maybe it needs some consoling of its own, upset as it is over its rightful owner.

Tony watches her work. The wound is on the right side of Stephen’s stomach – she examines it carefully without touching. Tony isn’t squeamish, but seeing the wound makes him feel a bit woozy. Maybe it’s because this is his friend, who has been attacked by someone unknown; it’s because he’s worried and anxious. It’s hard to believe that only one hour ago, they’d been joking and sitting together in peace. It feels like a lifetime ago.

Everything moves in a blur, after. Christine gets a stretcher from somewhere. She seems to ignore everyone else around her except for the other staff that comes to assist her – her first priority is to make sure that Stephen is settled and prepared for surgery. Tony just stands around. He’s certain that she has already forgotten who he is, but it’s the least of his concerns for now. As long as she makes sure that Stephen is alright, he doesn’t care who forgets about him in the meantime. 

Wong ducks back into the storage room, and Tony follows him. ‘’What are you doing?’’ he asks.

The man lets out a sigh. ‘’I’m going to see if I can find who did this. If they’re still out there, I want to find them, and I need to see if the Sanctum is okay. Without the Sorcerer Supreme to defend it, we’re weakened. You can stay here and look after Stephen.’’

‘’Wait –‘’ Tony starts, but Wong is already gone, and he’s staring at an empty room. With an annoyed huff, he walks back. No one is paying attention to him, and Stephen is in surgery, so there’s nothing he can do but wait. The Cloak pats him on the cheek, but he ignores it. 

He goes to the bathroom first. Some of Stephen’s blood is on him and his clothes, and he washes it off as well as he can. He also tries to clean the Cloak, but most of the blood is dried and doesn’t come off easily. The soap doesn’t help much, and Tony gives up after ten minutes of frustrated rubbing.

‘’We’ll throw you in the washing machine at the Sanctum,’’ he tells it. The Cloak seems offended, and Tony is far too agitated to wonder about his ability to read a Cloak’s emotions. He shrugs. ‘’If they even have a washing machine, anyway. I’m not certain of any technology in that place.’’

He settles in to wait afterwards. No one comes to tell him anything, but he doesn’t expect them to; after all, they don’t even remember that he exists. Still, it’s irksome to sit there for a long time and not get any updates. He wonders about what could have happened to Stephen – simple bad luck? A stabbing? He had other injuries, the stabbing is just the worst of them. Maybe a beating gone wrong? Or does it have to do with something else, something more sinister? Maybe all of this is his fault – he wishes he’d had taken the time to bring the Iron Man suit that’s hidden under his bed at the Sanctum.

Tony doesn’t have any answers. He shuffles in the uncomfortable plastic seats, and waits for a long time.

~*~

Eventually, he finds out where Stephen is resting, with a lot of haggling and asking a lot of desk assistants. It takes a lot of tries to find one that knows immediately, without forgetting about him when looking up in the information, and to tell him what room Stephen is in. He goes in silently to be surprised by Christine Palmer sitting there, holding Stephen’s hand. She looks up as he comes in, clearly not recognizing him. ‘’Sorry,’’ he says, ‘’Uh, do you – I can leave, if that’s –‘’

‘’No, it’s fine,’’ she says, and drops Stephen’s hand as she leans back in her chair. Tony sits down silently.

There’s an awkward silence for a few moments. ‘’So, you are?’’ she asks, then, looking up at him with dark eyes.

‘’I’m Tony,’’ he says. ‘’I’m a friend of Stephen’s. I’m sorry, he never mentioned you – are you…?’’ He doesn’t quite know what he means to ask, but realization dawns in Christine’s eyes nonetheless.

‘’Oh, no,’’ she says, laughing uncertainly, looking down at Stephen’s unconscious face. ‘’I mean – I was. But that’s a long time ago. He’s doing something else now, and I couldn’t be more proud of him, but, we’re not. That ship has sailed a long time ago. How do you know him? From his current… employment?’’

Tony snorts. ‘’That’s one way of saying it. Fact is, Stephen’s helping me out. I’m cursed, you see. He’s trying to lift my curse. It’s a whole thing.’’

‘’Right,’’ Christine says slowly. ‘’Cursed. Sounds inconvenient.’’

‘’It is,’’ he agrees. ‘’On that note – I’m assuming you’re going to check up on him more often? I mean, I don’t know when your shift’s over, and I’m certain you have dozens of things to do, but – well, you know. You’re going to check up on him?’’

‘’Oh, yes, definitely. He’s one of my patients, now, so I’ll be by. What for?’’

Tony sighs. ‘’This curse of mine, it makes people forget I exist. I know it sounds insane, but point is, if you leave this room, you’ll have forgotten that you’ve ever spoken to me within seconds.’’

She looks doubtful. ‘’That does sound insane, yeah.’’

‘’Who do you think brought you to Stephen in the first place?’’ he asks her, and he can see the moment she starts thinking.

‘’I just found him there,’’ she says slowly. ‘’He was lying in the storage room with the other man, Wong. It’s – that’s what happened, isn’t it?’’

Tony shakes his head at her ruefully. ‘’I came to get you and brought you there. C’mon – what reason would you have to go look in the storage room? And what are the chances of you stumbling over Stephen there? You’ve just forgotten about it.’’

She takes a deep breath. ‘’I can’t believe I’m actually believing you,’’ she says, shaking her head to herself. ‘’It’s not even the weirdest thing I’ve been through with Stephen. Alright. So. Is there anything I can do to remember you, in some way?’’

Tony shrugs. ‘’I don’t know. Write yourself a note, or give it to me so I can show you – it’s not a perfect system, but it’s the best I have.’’

She nods slowly and takes a pen out of her pocket, and starts writing on the back of her hand. When she’s done, a few seconds later, she stares at the result and smiles at him, showing him the handwriting. In small, neat writing, in the centre of the back of her hand, it says: _man with Stephen you don’t remember, but he is a friend_. 

‘’Thank you,’’ he says sincerely. ‘’For everything.’’

Christine looks at him sympathetically for a few seconds. ‘’You’re very welcome,’’ she says. ‘’By the way, I’ve put away Stephen’s belongings in the corner. If he wakes up, just push the button and someone will come to help you.’’

With that, she leaves, and Tony is left alone with the injured sorcerer.

~*~

Stephen doesn’t wake up. His breathing is shallow and his face is even paler than usual. His hair is unkempt and dark shadows are under his closed eyes.

Despite that, everyone keeps telling Tony he’s getting better. Wong comes back after two hours, but apparently the Sanctum is in an uproar, knowing their Master has been attacked, so he has to leave again soon. The Cloak stays with them, resting on Stephen’s chest. Tony has sorted the few belongings Stephen had with him; nothing is broken, and that’s a small relief. There’s his wallet and his phone, and the sensor they’d built together is there too.

It can’t have been a mugging, he thinks. Not if no one took his wallet and phone. Besides, he thinks that Stephen would have let go of those before letting the situation go so far as for him to be stabbed. No, Tony is convinced something else must have happened. Until Stephen wakes up, though, he can’t say anything about it.

Tony can’t handle the silence very well, so he talks a lot. His voice goes rough after a while, so that’s the moment he decides to put on some Queen songs for Stephen. He has a room all for himself anyway – Tony doesn’t know for what reason, but it gives him more freedom to make noise without bothering others. 

The Cloak is picking a song, while Tony is guessing the lyrics and debating with the Cloak on his and Stephen’s music taste. ‘’For an overqualified poncho, you sure have a lot of opinions,’’ he says to it as the Cloak gestures for another song. ‘’Shouldn’t you, you know, be lying in a closet somewhere? What is this, even? Don’t you have some sort of magic pants that wants to be friends with you?’’

He starts as the wry voice comes. ‘’It’s not a poncho,’’ Stephen says, and Tony turns to see him frowning. ‘’And we don’t have magic pants.’’

‘’Well, I wouldn’t know,’’ Tony says, regaining his balance as he sits down next to Stephen’s bed again. ‘’My clothes aren’t as loyal as yours. I don’t have a lot of experience.’’

Stephen smiles, but it turns into a grimace quickly. He looks down, lifting the white blanket, and then groans. ‘’What happened?’’

Tony sits up straighter. ‘’I was hoping you would tell me,’’ he states. ‘’The Cloak came to find me sometime after you left. Wong and me followed it to the back alley you were bleeding out in, and here we are. Christine Palmer fixed you up.’’

Stephen stills at that. ‘’Christine?’’ he repeats. 

‘’Yeah. What’s the deal with that, too?’’ Tony asks. ‘’Is she, like, the angry ex-girlfriend that you’re still in love with, or someone whose heart you broke, or friends with benefits, or –‘’

‘’It doesn’t matter,’’ Stephen interrupts him. ‘’That’s a long time ago.’’

_That ship has sailed a long time ago_ , Christine’s voice echoes in Tony’s head. There’s definitely some history here, but it’s true. It doesn’t matter, right now – there’s answers to be had. ‘’So, what happened?’’ he says. ‘’Who did this to you?’’

Stephen is silent for a few moments, looking at his wound before his eyes are fixed on Tony’s again. ‘’The sensor worked,’’ he says simply. ‘’I followed its signal, and I found – well, I’m not sure what I found. I wanted to get assistance, but before I could return to the Sanctum, they found me instead and attacked me. I didn’t see them very well, but there were at least ten of them, if I should hazard a guess.’’

‘’Where was that?’’ Tony asks.

‘’Near here, actually. Just a block away. But I doubt they’re still here – they’ll have moved by now.’’

At that moment, Tony hears something. He shares a look with Stephen, who seems to hear it too – Tony turns off the music to catch the sound. Suddenly, the consistent beeping is all sound there is in the small hospital room. 

He turns his head to see the sensor they’d created make the noise. And the sensor going off can only mean one thing. ‘’They’re coming,’’ he says, and jumps up frantically, trying to find something he can defend them with. Once again, he curses himself for not bringing his suit. If he doesn’t figure something out, _right now_ , they’re going to be in a lot of trouble.

Stephen sits up straighter in the hospital bed. ‘’How wounded was I, again?’’ he asks, steel in his voice.

‘’Very,’’ Tony tells him. ‘’Stephen – don’t move, you’re only going to make your injuries much worse. We’re going to be fine, I promise you. It’ll be fine.’’

But the sorcerer is already forming the magic in his hands, determination obvious in every movement. It costs him, Tony can see that at first glance. Perspiration is already showing, and his face is paling with every passing second.

They need to defend themselves, and Tony is not sure if they can.

The door swings open, and their enemies come in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you thought we were done with cliffhangers? you were wrong.


	16. Chapter 16

Stephen responds with a shield before Tony knows what is happening. The orange sparks fill the room for a moment and he’s blinded, but just in time he sees a dark figure come at him and he jumps away to avoid getting hit. He curses out loud.

‘’Tony,’’ Stephen says, his voice strained.

Whatever the sorcerer wants to say is lost in the sea of action. Tony has to duck to miss a brightly coloured whip coming at him. There’s three of them, and one of them aims at Stephen while the sorcerer is busy keeping off a second assailant.

Tony throws himself at the would-be attacker, and they both go down. He aims a punch at the nose, and the man swears and pushes Tony off him. A spell from Stephen saves Tony next – as the third man throws an aggressive red spell at him, a glowing shield appears before him, and he can see Stephen straining himself to keep it up.

This isn’t working. Within a second, Tony throws himself on Stephen’s hospital bed. ‘’Shield us now instead,’’ he says. They’re more of a target like this, but it’ll also be easier for Stephen to protect them. Stephen nods, but is breathing heavily as he cocoons them in the light. Some spells come at them, but they don’t get through Stephen’s shield.

‘’I’m not sure how long I can keep this up,’’ Stephen says, pain evident in his voice. ‘’We need to – ah, just let – Tony, we need to find a way to hurt them.’’

‘’I can get around them,’’ Tony says. ‘’They’ll forget I exist, and I can try to take them down. But I don’t have a weapon, here, and I’m not sure I can sneak up on them.’’

‘’I’m not – sure – they’re – damn it. They’ll – remember – maybe.’’ Stephen’s breath comes in pained gasps now, and Tony looks him over. The sorcerer is probably only still conscious because of the adrenaline. They need a quick victory, and Tony’s mind rushes through every possible scenario and still comes up blank. ‘’They – are – the. The ones that – cursed – you. Can’t risk – it.’’

‘’What choice do we have? Even if one of them cursed me, the other two will forget,’’ Tony stresses. ‘’Focus on keeping yourself safe, Stephen. Promise me.’’

‘’Can’t.’’

‘’Stephen,’’ Tony pleads. ‘’Come on. We’ll be fine.’’

‘’Fine,’’ Stephen repeats after him, but his shield becomes fainter and fainter with the relentless attacks. His Cloak settles around him, comforting and defensive. Tony relies on the piece of outerwear to protect his friend.

Tony nods resolutely and jumps out of the shield. ‘’You should work on your bedside manners,’’ he tells the three men, and throws a chair at them. It doesn’t do any harm, but one of the guys stumbles, and the other two turn on him. Stephen sags down in his bed as the shield disappears, and Tony slides towards them before they can focus on him again.

He kicks away the legs from under one of them, and he goes down with a cut-off yell. Stephen, in the meanwhile, finds time for one more spell and an emerald blast hits all of them, including Tony. He hits his head against the wall and sees stars for a moment, but the urgency of the situation makes sure he’s back on his feet in a second. 

Years of training in fighting, forced on him by his teammates’ insistence and Happy’s paranoia, finally pay off. Tony punches one of the men in the face, who goes down with an indignant cry. ‘’Get him down!’’ one of them says heatedly. The other man throws up his hands in Tony’s direction, and he falls down as his body goes limp all of a sudden.

Just as the fight seems to be lost, a portal opens itself in the middle of the room.

The three men look staggered, even as Tony prepares himself for danger. A new man steps through, his face masked. Only his dark eyes are visible; at his coming, everyone is silent for a long moment. Tony is wheezing on the ground, finally regaining the feeling in his limbs, and dares to look at Stephen. The sorcerer is trembling and sweating, and his eyes are closed; his injured body has given up under the strain, and Tony doesn’t doubt he’s in a worse way than he was before. Maybe it’s a good thing that he’s unconscious, because Tony doesn’t know what will happen next, and he’s not sure he wants to.

The masked man snaps his fingers, and the lights in the room flicker and go out. Tony tenses, expecting an attack – but when his eyes adjust to the darkness, only the masked man is still there, the portal still shining behind him.

‘’You should watch your steps, Stark,’’ he says in a low voice, and drops a card before him. ‘’The Sanctum cannot help you – and indeed, they shouldn’t. Throwing yourself in with them will lead to your destruction.’’ He turns and disappears. Tony breathes heavily, and sits up, trembling. He waits for a few seconds, even as the lights flicker back on. 

He watches the spot their enemies stood only seconds earlier – the adrenaline is leaving, and he suddenly feels exhausted. He takes the card that lies on the floor, but he doesn’t have time to read it before Wong appears in the doorway, Master Chen on his tail. ‘’Stark!’’ he says alarmed, but then turns to Stephen, checking his friend’s pulse. ‘’What happened here?’’

‘’Your timing is the worst,’’ he says, and stuffs the card in his pocket. Stephen is his first priority. ‘’What the hell. They were here, three of them, and then a masked guy came in, and they all disappeared.’’

Wong looks at him from over Stephen’s hospital bed. ‘’You’re okay?’’ he asks, and the tinge of worry warms him.

‘’I’m fine,’’ he says. His head and back hurt a bit, but it could’ve been far worse. ‘’I think they were mainly focused on Stephen. He held them off.’’

‘’Of course he did,’’ Chen answers. ‘’He’s the Sorcerer Supreme.’’

Tony rolls his eyes. ‘’Of course,’’ he says, and then pushes the button for the nurses to come. ‘’I still think he’s allowed some bed rest.’’

‘’He’ll need time to recover,’’ Wong says, looking at his friend in concern. ‘’He’s exhausted himself in every way possible. But he can’t do it here – we should have him back in the Sanctum as soon as possible. We can better protect him – and you, Stark – from anyone who wants to do you harm. We can’t take any more risks with this. It’s proven almost fatal twice now.’’

‘’We need to find out who these guys are,’’ Tony argues. ‘’We need to know who that one guy is, definitely. I think he’s the leader; maybe he didn’t want those others to be here. He called them back. He could’ve killed us right here and right now, and he didn’t.’’

Wong looks thoughtful; Master Chen looks pained at the very thought. ‘’Just because they don’t want to kill you doesn’t mean they will not harm you,’’ Chen tells him. ‘’These people have reasons for doing what they did.’’

‘’Right, but they don’t want us dead,’’ Tony retorts. ‘’So I want to know what their reasons are.’’

‘’Curiosity killed the cat,’’ Chen says.

‘’And satisfaction brought it back.’’

They look at each other for a long moment, but it’s interfered by Christine Palmer running back into the room. ‘’What happened here?’’ she exclaims, looking at the destroyed furniture and then at the three men in it.

Wong and Chen automatically look at Tony.

‘’Magic?’’ he suggests.

~*~

It’s agreed that Stephen has to stay in the hospital for a few more days, at least until the worst of his injuries have healed. The incident with the three men hasn’t aggravated his wounds altogether too much, miraculously enough. However, his energy is depleted and he doesn’t manage to stay awake for long stretches of time, especially at first. Wong can’t stay, now he has to run the Sanctum in Stephen’s stead. He mentions something about informing the other Sanctums and making sure everyone is on their guard, but Tony doesn’t pay attention to that part. 

Master Moretti stays with him and Stephen, but she amuses herself with other patients, too, when it turns out Tony doesn’t feel like having a conversation. She’s gentle, and she doesn’t mind him being unsociable after the events they have faced.

Tony sleeps in the chair. He thinks there’s a note on the door that explains Tony’s presence, because no one starts when they see him, and they leave him alone generally. When he leaves to pee he does indeed find a note – it’s in an unfamiliar handwriting, and Tony doesn’t know who to thank for it. He thinks it’s Master Moretti, but she only hums non-committedly when he brings it up and doesn’t say anything else. Tony doesn’t press.

It’s been two days since the attack when Tony is awake at the same time as Stephen. He hasn’t left the hospital a lot, not even when Moretti asked him to; he feels guilty about Stephen’s injuries. It’s the guys who cursed him who did this, and if it wasn’t for him, Stephen wouldn’t be here. If he hadn’t asked to get hamburgers, Stephen would not have gone out and gotten hurt; if he hadn’t been here, maybe those guys wouldn’t have come at all. Wong gets him a few spare shirts, and Tony would like to ask for his Iron Man suit, except that they still don’t know he took it from the Compound. He keeps silent – Moretti is here in case anything happens, and he still feels wrong about acknowledging he has it.

He doesn’t know what he’d do at the Sanctum, and he doesn’t have anywhere else to go. At least here he can make sure Stephen is alright, despite the fact that he can’t give him medicine, like the doctors, or give him strengthening potions, like Moretti. He puts on Queen, and he reads books – actual books from a small library in the hospital itself – and he draws suit ideas and blueprints in a notebook that one of the nurses gave him. Nothing extraordinary happens, but Tony feels like he needs a respite from everything.

And the mind-numbing days pass by Stephen’s side, mostly in silence, right up to the moment the sorcerer regains his consciousness.

Tony doesn’t know when, exactly, the sorcerer wakes up. Thing is, Tony looks up from his notebook and finds Stephen looking at him.

‘’Hey,’’ he says, startled, laying down his notebook on the floor and leaning forward. ‘’Stephen? You awake?’’

‘’Perhaps,’’ Stephen says, and he frowns. ‘’What happened?’’

Tony tells him everything about the three attackers and the one guy who’d intervened and who called Tony by his name. Only then he remembers about the card that’s still in his pocket, and he rests his hand on it. It’s fortunate that he’d only gotten clean shirts, at least, or he would have lost it forever. Stephen doesn’t seem to notice, and Tony resolves not to tell him now. He has forgotten to read it, in all the commotion, and Stephen is hardly in a position to do something about whatever is on there.

Stephen is silent for a while, taking it all in. His face is still pale, except for the red, irritated spots around his lacerations and the faint blue bruises marring his cheekbones. His eyes are puffy and tired, but he looks clear-headed, and Tony is far too relieved that he’s awake and coherent. He’s not much of a sitting-beside-the-bedside type, and the change in pace combined with worry made him antsy, despite everyone saying that Stephen would be back to his old self before long.

‘’Then he must have been the one who cursed you,’’ Stephen concludes. ‘’The other men didn’t seem to recognize you, at least.’’

Tony freezes. He knew that by remembering him, the man must have cursed him; he just hadn’t thought about it yet so extensively, with everything else going on. The man who did this to him stood before him, and Tony did nothing. ‘’Shit,’’ he says. ‘’I could’ve –‘’

‘’Don’t,’’ Stephen says, and his voice is just as cutting as it always has been, despite injuries and exhaustion. ‘’You couldn’t have done anything. We were severely outnumbered and in a unfavourable position. We couldn’t have hoped for a better outcome. We’ve come further in finding out answers than we have in weeks.’’

‘’But we still can’t do anything about it,’’ Tony says miserably. ‘’Stephen, I’m tired of this. You’ve been searching for months now, and Wong, and Minoru, and so many other people at the Sanctums. Are we even going to find anything? Are these guys always going to be one step ahead of us? We don’t know why they’re doing this – they know we have the sensor, now, and we still don’t know anything.’’

Stephen looks at him, and for a moment, it looks as if he looks through his façade right into the misery and pain – Tony keeps his gaze as steady as he can. He doesn’t have anything to fear from Stephen. 

‘’We do know some things,’’ the sorcerer replies. ‘’Not a lot, I admit it, but we can’t stop searching – not now. Derrick Price was among our attackers, or the sensor wouldn’t have gone off. We know he’s definitely connected to your case, and that he listens to the one who cursed you – their leader, of sorts. He doesn’t want us dead, in the very least. There’s another reasoning behind this.’’ 

‘’I want to know.’’

‘’I know. We will.’’

Tony just wants to open his mouth to say something when the door opens, and Christine comes in. ‘’Hey there, you’re awake,’’ she says, a quiet smile playing around her lips. ‘’Is it a good time?’’

‘’Christine,’’ Stephen says, and when Tony looks at him, the sorcerer has a slightly awkward expression on his face. ‘’I – I heard I have you to thank for my successful surgery. I’m very glad you didn’t hand it over to Nicodemus, in any case.’’

Christine’s smile broadens, and she sits beside them on the free chair. Her eyes glitter in the understanding of some sort of inside joke. ‘’Right, you should be extremely glad I didn’t place you in the hands of a very capable doctor who could have meant just as much to you as I did. Lucky you.’’

‘’Please,’’ Stephen scoffs. ‘’The doctor who called a guy brain dead and was preparing to harvest his organs when he could still be saved? Rue the day I fall into Nicodemus West’s hands.’’

Tony stands up as he watches them banter, suddenly feeling hollow. ‘’I’m going to the toilet,’’ he announces. ‘’Be back soon.’’

If Stephen eyes him strangely, Tony ignores it. At least neither of them say anything about it, and he leaves the room to wander the halls of the hospital. Maybe he can find Moretti. 

~*~

Stephen watches Tony go, and doesn’t say anything. Truth to be told, he’s not exactly sure what to say. All he knows is that there’s a lot of things going on in his mind, and he feels foggy enough without figuring out what it means right at this moment.

So he focuses on Christine instead, who’s still looking at him with her kind eyes. She’s always been too good for him, Christine – too patient and smart and skilled. She is unreal, and Stephen has always been too greedy. He’d taken, and taken, until she didn’t have anything to give anymore.

Things would be different now – but too much is different now, and their opportunity has come and gone like a leaf on the wind. All he feels for her is friendly affection, now, and regret and fondness for their shared past. It’s for the better.

She wouldn’t be able to have a home in the Sanctum, anyway – she wouldn’t fit in there. She is too much science and facts, and too much rational practicality to be surrounded by the magic every day, to live with the reminders of not having all the answers. For a moment, Stephen thinks of another person who surrounds himself with science, and still has found a place – but that’s different. He thinks of dark eyes looking at the magic in awe, and he knows Christine wouldn’t be able to shape herself to fit into the same space that Tony does. No one can.

‘’Are you feeling alright?’’ Christine asks. ‘’You were in a pretty bad shape, when we found you. You’ve been asleep for two days.’’

‘’I feel like I’ve been stabbed,’’ he answers easily.

‘’Right. Maybe you should try to avoid getting stabbed in the future,’’ she replies. ‘’God, Stephen – how do you even get into these situations? Can’t you do what you do without putting yourself in danger?’’

‘’I’m not _trying_ to get stabbed,’’ he complains, and tries to sit a bit more upright, but fails. His side aches far too much for him to attempt it again. ‘’You told me I could be more, and you were right. Here I am, being more – and it comes with dangers, yes. But it’s worth it.’’

She looks at him, something sad in her countenance. ‘’You’re not going to change a thing, are you?’’

He meets her eyes. They’ve always had an easy understanding between the two of them, and once again, she probably knows what he’s going to say before he has formed the words. ‘’No, I’m not. This is who I am now.’’

Christine nods slowly. ‘’Okay. Alright. Then I’ll be here, to patch up you and all your cult members who take a sword to the side. But that’s all I can do.’’

‘’That’s all I could ever ask,’’ Stephen answers sincerely, and takes her hand as they share an amiable silence.

~*~

Stephen realizes he’s waking up when he’s drowsily blinking open his eyes, which is the same time he finds out he fell asleep in the first place. It can’t have been for too long; he can still see the sun from the same window, and Christine is still there beside him.

It takes him a few seconds to understand that the entire reason he woke up is because she’s talking to someone. ‘’If you don’t leave right now, I’ll call security,’’ she says, and her voice is furious. Stephen turns in his bed to see Tony stand in the door opening.

‘’Look, you don’t understand –‘’ Tony is saying, trying to argue with her, but Christine seems to have her own suspicions.

‘’You’re intruding in a private room. If you –‘’

‘’Christine,’’ Stephen says, and blinks away his sleep fully. ‘’He’s okay. It’s Tony.’’ 

The fight seems to leave her. ‘’You know him?’’

‘’I told you so, it’s complicated,’’ Tony shoots back. 

Christine frowns, looking between Stephen and Tony. ‘’Alright,’’ she says, backing off. ‘’I’m sorry, in that case – I just. Thought I’d remember you from before. Well, I have to go. Get better, Stephen, I’ll check up on you later and see if you’re ready to be released.’’

‘’Bye, Christine,’’ Stephen says, and watches her disappear. Tony stands in the door opening for a little longer – then he seems to make up his mind and takes the chair that Christine just abandoned.

‘’How are you feeling?’’ Tony asks, his voice a bit lower and softer. His dark eyes are focused fully on Stephen’s, and he shifts under the pressure.

‘’Better,’’ he says, though his side is inclined to disagree. ‘’Where were you off to?’’

‘’Nowhere,’’ Tony answers. ‘’What’s the deal with you and Christine? You dated, but not anymore? She seems to really care about you, you know.’’

‘’Not like _that_ ,’’ Stephen tells him.

Tony looks like he doesn’t believe that, exactly. ‘’Why not like that?’’

There’s a million reasons for that, Stephen doesn’t say. ‘’It didn’t work out. I dated her for a while, back when I still worked at the hospital. I made everything about me, and she couldn’t take the massive ego I had. It was – well. I cared about her, but more about me. It wasn’t until later that I realized what I’d done and tried to make it right. It’s all too late, of course. I’ve been an ass to her, and I don’t deserve her to be as kind to me as she is.’’

Tony is silent for a moment. Stephen thinks he’s going to drop it until he starts talking again. ‘’When Pepper was still my PA,’’ he begins slowly, ‘’you don’t know what I had her do. She’d impressed me, so I’d hired her, but then – God, I made her go through hell. She was far too capable for what she had to do, and then I had her do my tasks on the side because I couldn’t be bothered. She worked for me for years, picking up after me. She saw the countless women I slept with and then abandoned. She saw the worst of me, and then I came back from Afghanistan, and she saw I’d changed. At first, she wanted to leave, too. Even though I was becoming someone better than I was before. Since then, she always stuck around, no matter what happened. I drove her crazy, and she deserves more than me. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t work. Didn’t work, I mean – it’s complicated, now.’’

‘’She’ll remember you again,’’ Stephen tells him. ‘’When we find the way to undo your curse, she’ll remember.’’

Tony smiles, but it’s a bitter thing, and something twists in Stephen to see it. It’s the saddest expression he’s seen on his friend so far. 

‘’Do you know what caused me to run?’’ he asks. ‘’No, that’s a rhetorical question. When this curse began, I went through a lot of shit. When the people you care about most forget about you, you lose a part of yourself. A part that you didn’t even know was dependant on the company you keep, but it is. I came home, hoping to convince Pepper to remember me, to make her stay with me somehow. And I came home, and I found her with Rhodey. And it’s – it drives me crazy, because they deserve each other. They really do. But – it’s her. It’s Pepper. She’s – she’s everything, the reason I do anything. And it’s Rhodey, and he’s a brother to me, and he’s – but they’re together now? They’ve probably been together now for months. So, no, I don’t know what’s going to happen if Pepper remembers again. And I don’t know what to hope for, either, because it’s not going to end well either way. So maybe I should just take my losses and not fix it, right? Let everyone forget me and have their happy ending. It went through my mind, but I’m enough of an ass to still want to get back everyone else, even if I can’t have Pepper.’’

‘’You don’t know that,’’ Stephen says, and he aches for Tony. He can’t imagine loving someone so much and then losing them to someone so close to you, and them not even knowing it. ‘’You deserve more than this, Tony.’’

Tony looks down. ‘’It’s not the point. The point is, if there’s someone you love, Stephen, you have to go for it. You don’t know when your chance may be taken from you, because there’s always going to be someone else to replace you if you don’t. And then you’ll regret it.’’

With that, he stands up again, and leaves.

Stephen stays awake for a long time now, by himself in the quiet room. He wants Wong’s easy companionship, or any of his Masters to talk to and distract him. He wants to find Christine and hold her hand and tell him that he’s sorry for being a dick to her for years. But he doesn’t want to be back with her, and thoughts of her are replaced by someone else.

Because most of all, he wants to tell Tony that everything will be alright, though the truth is that it’s a promise he can’t make.

~*~

Tony leans against the wall, and sighs deeply. He doesn’t know why he told Stephen about Pepper and Rhodey. Maybe because he needs to accept that things won’t magically return to the way they were if his curse is broken. Maybe because he needs to accept that things are going to be different, and he doesn’t know how everything will end. 

Because a happy ending may not be in store for him after all, and maybe he never deserved one.

Wishing none of it had happened is useless, though, and still, he has to look at the bright sides. He wouldn’t have become friends with Stephen if none of it had happened. Kind Stephen, who tries so hard and does so much. He wouldn’t have become so comfortable in the Sanctum with its Masters.

Tony straightens again and wants to go in search of Moretti, to ask her to ask for Wong to come. He’s certain that the Master will want to know about Stephen’s improving condition and spend some time with his friend. Just as he starts to walk, he feels something move in his pocket, and involuntarily he stills again.

The card. He still hasn’t read it.

Slowly, looking around him to make sure he’s alone, he fishes it out of his pocket. The card is small and white, nothing extraordinary about it. He unfolds it, to find a single line written on it.

_If you want answers, meet me at 72 Street. You will not be harmed, but come alone._

Tony stares at it. There is a date and time below it, scribbled quickly but legible. It’s still quite a few days away, anyway, so he doesn’t have to worry about hurrying away, even as he feels something heavy settle in his chest as he reads the card. He stuffs the card back in his pocket and goes in search of Moretti.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not as much of a cliffhanger as last two chapters, right :) and there we have it! our first encounter with the guy who cursed Tony! I hope you guys liked this one.


	17. Chapter 17

His notebook is filling up with sketches and notes, but Tony doesn’t notice as he absentmindedly flips to the next page to continue his musings.

There has to be a way to make the sensor work better. They’re dealing with a large group, here, and only tracing Derrick Price won’t be enough. Not if they actually want to find out more, and that thought weighs heavily on his mind.

Tony, above anything else, wants answers. Well, he’d like for the curse to be lifted, but baby steps. Answers would be a great beginning. The card promising them feels like it’s going to burn a hole in his pocket.

He hasn’t told anyone about its contents, and he thinks he’s not going to, either. Tony isn’t under any delusions about what would happen if he did: no one in the Sanctum would let him go by himself. Especially if he told Stephen. And yet, he feels like it’s something he needs to do. This is only the Sanctum’s problem because Tony came to Stephen for help; he can try and find some answers by himself. He’s not bound to the sorcerers for help, even though it is starting to feel like that. Besides, he’s grown to know the Masters of the Sanctum a bit better. Stephen and Wong will not allow him to go, and all the others will follow their lead. Stephen would want to come, and he’s far too injured to even think of it.

Even as he considers going, without telling a soul, he starts feeling guilty, but he represses that feeling as he continues sketching his blueprints for a new, improved sensor.

~*~

Stephen slowly gets stronger, and his injuries less painful. Tony starts going back to the Sanctum as he heals, though he still stays in the hospital to stick by his side for the majority of the day. The uncomfortable white plastic chair on the right side of his bed becomes ‘Tony’s chair’, in his mind. He gets a sense that maybe it’s guilt that drives Tony to be there so much; he’d discussed it with Wong a few days earlier, when his friend came visiting, and that’s the conclusion they’d come to.

He tries to make it clear to Tony that he has nothing to worry about, but he’s not sure how much he notices it. Tony still manages to look at him with an expression that leaves Stephen aching to help him, with the heart-break and sadness that radiates from him sometimes. There’s not much he can do but talk to Tony, and ask him to help him out – only then some life seems to come back to the other man, who seems to have been as shaken by Stephen’s attack as Stephen himself.

All in all, whatever reason Tony has for sticking by his side, Stephen grows to rely on him heavily during his healing period. Moretti is patient and makes him potions that help him grow stronger quicker, but she isn’t a nurse, nor do her strengths lie in that area. She returns to the Sanctum regularly for her classes and for more materials, and it’s not Moretti that holds his arm as he tries to walk, or that endures Stephen’s grumbling about his inability to go normally about his day. Wong has taken over many of his duties, but it still rankles not to be able to do anything. Tony picks up on it, too, and has brought him many books and puzzles to keep him busy for a while. 

It takes three more days for Stephen to be released from the hospital, though Christine has a sceptical frown on her face as she does so. Even she has to admit that besides taking it easy, there’s nothing more that can be done for Stephen at this stage. His injury has to heal, and that can happen just as well in the safety of the Sanctum as in the hospital.

Wong, Tony and Moretti are there to see Stephen home; even if in their case, it’s an easy matter. Wong creates the portal, and Tony and Moretti support the Sorcerer Supreme so he can walk through it. Stephen trembles with the exertion, and if he holds onto Tony a bit too tightly, the other man doesn’t say.

He hates this. Tony and Moretti gently lower him onto his bed. Wong watches him, worry clear in his eyes. 

‘’I’m fine,’’ he snaps, and has to refrain from slapping away the prying fingers on his skin, even as he lays down and tries not to pant at the pain.

‘’You’re not,’’ Tony says strictly. ‘’You’re only going to be fine if you let us help you.’’

‘’Calm down,’’ Moretti tells them off. Despite her small stature, Stephen knows she won’t hesitate to give him a tap on the back of his head, if he should misbehave. ‘’You’ll be right as rain. Don’t overexert yourself, keep up the medicine, and the doctors said you would be feeling much better in a few short days. I will make another potion for you so your sleep will be more restful.’’

‘’Thank you, Master Moretti,’’ he says, and with a short bow, she takes her leave.

Wong takes her place, and he conjures up two chairs before sitting down calmly.

‘’I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to this freaky magic thing,’’ Tony says, but he doesn’t look bothered as he also takes a seat.

Stephen sighs and looks towards the ceiling. ‘’Can’t I just get out of bed?’’ he asks pointedly. ‘’I’ve been resting for days. I should be able to do something now that I’m back.’’

‘’You’re a doctor, figure it out,’’ Wong answers him a bit dryly.

He knows he has been stabbed, and it’s been less than a week. He knows, because it hurts. All the medical terms and procedures run through his head, and he knows he shouldn’t even be out of the hospital yet. Knowing all of this, however, is a very different thing from being in the position. He is itching to go out and check on the Sanctum; not having been able to for days makes him nervous. 

Tony leans forward, obviously seeing how he feels. ‘’Look, Stephen. Just give it a few days. I know you’re eager to do something, I’d feel the same. But we found you bleeding in an alley only a few days ago, and all we want for you is to give yourself some time to heal. You’ll be running around again soon enough. And hey, it’s not like you can’t do anything! I’ve appointed myself to be your personal assistant and complaining buddy for the next few days, and for you, I’m ready to waive my usual fee.’’

‘’So generous of you,’’ Wong responds. 

‘’I’m working on an upgraded version of the sensor, anyway,’’ Tony continues cheerfully, as if Wong didn’t say anything. ‘’I think I have some ideas, but I definitely need your help. You’re in?’’

It does sound like a good way to spend the days. The sensor has already moved them forward – though perhaps not in a necessarily desirable manner – and Stephen won’t have to spend all day lazing around. Still, it smarts somewhat. He feels like he’s being catered to, and despite the fact that Tony’s company is not at all unwanted, he does feel a bit mothered by both him and Wong.

But he agrees, and Tony beams at him, and that softens the blow considerably.

~*~

Having a session with the Masters isn’t Stephen’s idea of a great afternoon, but there’s nothing for it. It wasn’t planned, but as all the Masters come to make sure Stephen is getting better, the following discussion on their problems is inevitable.

‘’Derrick Price has always been hot-headed,’’ Master Chen says, shaking his head, ‘’but I’d never expected him to turn against the Sanctum in such a way.’’ The other Masters murmur in agreement, looking uneasy.

‘’There must’ve been a reason our sorcerers left,’’ Master Brown says thoughtfully. ‘’We’ve already established that. Someone must have convinced them, and we need to figure out who.’’

‘’If we figure out who, we’d probably also know who to look to for undoing Tony’s curse,’’ Stephen says, trying to participate as much as he can while lying down in his bed. ‘’We have been looking for months now, and we haven’t figured out a way to undo it by ourselves. We need to find this group so we can put them to justice, for both the Sanctum itself and those we vowed to assist.’’

Everyone agrees to that, and from there, the discussion dissolves somewhat. The Masters talk among themselves, but they soon are thrown out of the room by Wong, who claims Stephen needs rest.

It’s probably true. It’s probably also because Wong wants to have a private conversation.

Stephen waits patiently until his friend has shooed all their Masters back to their tasks, and then sits by his bed. He waits a while – Wong sits in silence, and Stephen doesn’t mind. It’s calming, for a bit, and he has always appreciated Wong’s easy companionship.

‘’Stephen,’’ Wong starts after a few minutes. ‘’I know you feel responsible for breaking Tony’s curse. But don’t you think that you ought to put the Sanctum first now?’’

‘’It doesn’t matter, because they’re one and the same issue,’’ Stephen answers, frowning.

Wong sighs. ‘’I know,’’ he says. ‘’And I have grown fond of Stark, too. Having him around is not bad for the Sanctum, or for any of us. He helps out in his own way, and he’s become a friend to not just you. But you know he’s not going to stay, right? If we succeed in undoing his curse, something all of us hope for, of course, then what do you think is going to happen? He’s going to go back home, Stephen. He stays here not because he wants to, but because he has nowhere else to go.’’

Stephen feels a stab of something. ‘’Of course he’ll go back, but that doesn’t mean we’ll never see him again. Why are you bringing this up, anyway?’’

His friend is silent for a few moments. ‘’I’ve known you for a few years, now, and you are a good friend to me,’’ Wong says softly. ‘’And in those years, you’ve changed in a number of ways, but you’ve always been a man who does not open up to others easily. I also know you’re a kind and compassionate man, and you will suffer greatly before allowing anyone else to be harmed. I also know that you loved Christine, when you just came to the Sanctum.’’

‘’That’s years ago,’’ Stephen protests. ‘’It doesn’t –‘’

‘’Let me finish. I know you don’t love her anymore. But I mean that I know how you looked at her. And you’ve had the same look on your face for the past few days, though you may not realize it. Tony’s become a friend to many of us, Stephen. But you’re risking something far more than a lost friendship by placing your trust in Tony. I can’t tell you that it’s a bad fit; I’ve seen the two of you around each other. But there is only a handful of people that remember Tony now, and if the rest of the world regains their memories, I’m not sure he will stay. Not while he’s lost his own heart to someone else.’’

Stephen stares at him, for a few moments. ‘’I’m not –‘’ he starts, but then forgets what he wants to say. ‘’It’s not like that. He’s just – you know that.’’

Wong shrugs. ‘’Maybe I’m wrong,’’ he says, and pats Stephen’s arm. ‘’I just wanted to tell you to focus on the Sanctum, for a while. I’ve already informed Minoru and Wright about your condition, and Wright has promised to help out in the New York Sanctum to see if he has any luck with his lost sorcerers. Both of them will come to visit you soon and have a meeting.’’

He leaves, and Stephen stares at the closed door for a long while. He doesn’t think he’ll manage to fall asleep with all the thoughts swirling in his head, but his eyes close involuntarily and the peace of sleep claims him soon after.

~*~

Tony stares at the card in his hand. He’s sitting in the dining room by himself; it’s not nearly dinner time yet, and somewhat past lunch, so everyone is off going about their ordinary tasks. Tony doesn’t have much he can work on; he’s come as far in designing a new sensor as he possibly could without Stephen’s input. 

He shouldn’t go, probably. Someone cursed him, and that doesn’t bode well for any future intentions this guy may have. He certainly did not invite Tony because he wanted the best for him. He should give the card to Stephen – or maybe Wong, considering the current state of the Sorcerer Supreme – and let them deal with it.

But he’s Tony Stark. He’s Iron Man. He can’t let the Sanctum deal with all of his problems, not even if they have to do with curses and the Mystic Arts. He’s done stupider stuff than this, and still he feels uneasy. He doesn’t want to betray the trust of his friends at the Sanctum, but he can hardly tell them, or they’ll stop him.

So he knows that he shouldn’t go, but he will. He has to – they haven’t made enough headway in the few months that Tony has spent at the Sanctum. He’s made friends, he’s even gotten to terms with how he’s living now, since he has a few people he can rely on. But this curse has to end, somehow; and if there’s even the slightest possibility of getting answers by going, then there’s no choice for him. Not really – the decision has already been made. He just has to accept that he’s going behind the backs of the people that have taken him in – behind Stephen’s back. It makes him feel ungrateful, but maybe they’ll understand afterwards. He’ll share whatever he finds out, obviously.

He thinks of Pepper’s laugh. He hasn’t seen her in months, and his chest aches, but it’s become a numb pain. He misses her, and Peter, and Rhodey, and Bruce, and Happy – everyone. It’s a hole that the Sanctum can’t fill, and his determination grows.

He stuffs back the card in his pocket. The date on it is tomorrow, and he’s going to go there. Mind made up, he stands up. Even if he’s not going to tell the sorcerers about this, he has made a promise to Stephen to help him while he’s still injured. He makes his way to the room. It’s only a few stairs and turns; Tony can get there blind-folded, by now.

When he gets in there, he finds Stephen fast asleep. His face still looks too pale, but he doesn’t look as exceptionally ill anymore.

Tony smiles and leaves. It’s better to let his friend rest.

~*~

Stephen goes from asleep to awake without experiencing the sleepy half-awareness that he usually does, and opens his eyes to see his own ceiling. For a second, he’s relieved to not wake up to the despairing sight of the hospital walls anymore – now he doesn’t work there anymore, it seems he’s grown to dislike the all-white furniture and penetrating smell. Maybe he’s always disliked it, and had just not noticed it before.

The second thing he’s aware of is the dull ache in his side. He sighs, and sits up. His injury throbs, but it’s already getting better, and that thought brightens him up a bit. With slow movements, trying not to jar his wound too much, he manages to get up. His Cloak settles over his shoulders, despite the fact he’s only wearing a sleeping shirt and boxers besides. It still hurts faintly, but if he’s very careful, he can move around.

Enjoying his newfound mobility, Stephen leans on his bed as he tries to get into some pants. It becomes clear very soon that his usual outfit isn’t going to work, and neither will he be able to get into his jeans. He still has a pair of comfortable sweaters, and after five minutes of quiet swearing and trying not to pull his wound, he’s into them. He decides to leave on his sleeping shirt; he looks presentable enough for a man who’s barely able to walk by himself.

Steadying himself with a combination of magic, furniture and the help of the Cloak of Levitation, he manages to get out of the room. Judging from the quickly fading sunlight, it must be somewhere around dinnertime – he can’t have slept for too long, in that case.

He turns around the corner and almost bumps into Master Chen. ‘’Master Strange!’’ the other Master says, looking stunned. ‘’What are you doing up? I was just going to see if you were awake. Do I have to get Master Wong?’’

‘’Definitely not,’’ Stephen says quickly. Wong would only send him back to bed. ‘’I’m just going for a small stroll. Doctor’s orders – well, my own, in this case. Why did you want to see me?’’

‘’Wanda Maximoff from the Avengers tried to get in touch with the Sanctum, and asked for assistance in a matter. I told her you were unavailable, but she insisted that you told her you could help her.’’

Stephen frowns. He’d almost forgotten his promise to Wanda Maximoff. He’s had other matters to think about, and she has not been in contact with him since that day at the Avengers Compound. He thinks of Tony, who’d stormed out of the room, so upset – and maybe it’s for the better not to think about Tony Stark. His conversation with Wong is still fresh in his mind, and Stephen doesn’t want to think about anything Wong implied. 

He has promised to help Wanda Maximoff, and he’s bound to run into Tony if he stays at the Sanctum. Tony wanted to help him, after all – Stephen isn’t sure he can be in one room with the man right now. Not without giving away some of the inner turmoil he’s still trying to deny the existence of.

‘’I have,’’ he answers slowly, as Chen waits patiently for his answer. ‘’Did she say where she was?’’

‘’At the Avengers Compound – but are you sure you’re up for that, Master Strange?’’

‘’Believe me, it’s better than the alternative,’’ he says, faking his optimism. ‘’Tell her I’m coming. Just to ease your worry, you can come with me – or are you busy? Any Master will do.’’

‘’No, all my lessons are done – but don’t you think Stark will want to come with you?’’ Chen asks.

Stephen’s heart skips a beat at that. ‘’Definitely not,’’ he answers. ‘’No, we should leave him out of it. I’ll get something to eat and then we’ll go – thirty minutes, tops.’’

‘’What about Master Wong?’’ 

He sighs. ‘’Master Chen, if you don’t want me to go insane with bed-rest, you won’t breathe a word about this to Wong until he’s too late to stop it. I promise you, we won’t be doing anything to over-exert me or hinder my healing process. Now, I’ll meet you back here in thirty minutes.’’

He doesn’t wait for Chen’s answer, but slowly makes his way to the dining room. Breathing has become slightly more difficult by the time he’s there, but there’s a satisfaction in getting there all by himself. Simeon is the cook for the day, and he gets to eat something that’s not dry hospital food, and then he tries to go back.

His plan would have succeeded, had he not ran into Tony.

He actually almost literally runs into him. Only Tony’s quick thinking stops them from bumping into each other; he grabs Stephen’s arm to steady him, and Stephen tries not to notice their proximity.

‘’Stephen,’’ Tony says, and he sounds incredulous. ‘’What’re you doing out of bed? You could’ve called for me.’’

Stephen has sat down for the better part of thirty minutes for his dinner, but his legs are trembling already again. ‘’Are you honestly going to tell me you would’ve let me walk down to dinner?’’ he asks wryly.

Tony shrugs, grinning devilishly at him. Stephen tries not to stare. ‘’Maybe if you’d asked nicely,’’ he says, batting his eyelashes at him. Well. That means it’s time to run. 

‘’Well, I’m actually late for an appointment with Master Chen,’’ he says hurriedly. ‘’So I’ll just be off, and then –‘’

Tony might have let him go, with enough persuasion. Tony might have let him walk a few more stairs, and would never have known. Everything might have worked out in his favour, had Master Chen not seen him right at that moment and opened his mouth. ‘’Master Strange,’’ the Master calls out. ‘’Are you ready to go?’’

Stephen curses the moment Tony’s eyes narrow. ‘’Go where?’’

He glances at Master Chen, who startles upon seeing Tony. ‘’Good evening, Mr Stark. Master Strange and I were going to head to the Avengers Compound to help out Miss Maximoff.’’

And there goes all possibility of this going even remotely well. Tony’s eyes whip back to Stephen’s, and he can’t quite tell what’s in there. Hurt, betrayal, anger – it’s all gone within a moment as Tony crosses his arms, regarding him coolly. ‘’The day after you’ve come back from the hospital for being stabbed, the first thing you’re going to do is visit Avengers Compound to offer your help to Wanda Maximoff?’’ he says.

Chen looks at Stephen, clearly wondering if Tony wasn’t supposed to know. It’s too late for that now, and Stephen sighs. ‘’If I recall correctly, the first thing I did was sleep,’’ he says pointedly. ‘’I have rested for days, Tony. I will only be offering advice, nothing strenuous. I want to do something, and if I can help, then I will.’’

‘’Right.’’ Tony’s voice is still cold as ice. ‘’Of course. Because you’re so _helpful_ , aren’t you? Damn it, Stephen. You were stabbed five days ago. You being up and about is enough of a miracle, let alone you trying to go about your day. You agree with this?’’ At the last bit, he turns to Master Chen, who looks surprised at being addressed, but quickly gains his wits.

‘’Master Strange is the Sorcerer Supreme, and capable of making his own decision,’’ he answers. ‘’It’s not up to me, or _you_ , for that matter, to question them. You are here because of his helpfulness, exactly.’’

‘’Tony –‘’ Stephen starts. Master Chen is being everything but helpful, and he doesn’t want Tony to be angry with him. He just wants some time to _think_ , that’s all, and he can’t do that around Tony right now. Is helping Wanda Maximoff so bad that it warrants this reaction?

Tony smiles at him, but everything about that smile is wrong and fake, and Stephen aches for him to stop doing that. ‘’No, I understand,’’ he says, in a way that means he doesn’t at all. ‘’Sorry for questioning your authority, Master Strange, though you seem intent on landing in the hospital once again. Let me know how that works out for you, huh?’’

With that, he stomps off, and Stephen watches him with a heavy heart.

‘’Are you ready to go?’’ Master Chen says uncertainly. Stephen turns to him and tries to look encouraging. He’s suddenly very tired, and his side is aching, but he’s stubborn enough not to give in now. He’s irrationally angry at Tony for making such a big deal out of this, and he feels uncomfortable about Tony being mad, and he’s weary of not knowing what all the other feelings are.

He’s suddenly very aware that he’s on his way to the Avengers Compound in only his sweatpants, sleeping shirt and Cloak of Levitation. It probably won’t help him uphold his image as ‘mysterious wizard’. 

He decides he doesn’t care about any of that anymore. ‘’Let’s go,’’ he says.

Master Chen creates a portal, and through they go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Idiots, the both of them. Next week: more bad-decision making.
> 
> I wanted to thank you guys, by the way. I've received so many wonderful comments from you, and they really make my day. You guys always make me look forward to posting a new chapter! This may not be the most widely-read fanfic in the fandom, but every single one of you who reads it makes it worth having written all of it in the first place. So thanks for your kind words, your bookmarks and your kudos, and in some cases even your art! I appreciate it more than you guys may think.


	18. Chapter 18

‘’You are insane,’’ Wong says when he joins them, sitting beside Stephen. Chen is helping out Wanda, so no one notices him arriving except for Stephen, who doesn't mean to stop Wong from joining him anyway.

Stephen is sitting calmly, not even turning to his friend. ‘’Why?’’ he asks. ‘’Someone was in need of my help and I could deliver without it being detrimental to my own health. Why should I not have gone?’’

‘’Not detrimental to your health?’’ Wong repeats incredulously. ‘’You must be out of your mind. You’ve been sitting here for hours, helping Wanda Maximoff gain control over her powers, that’s fine. But to do it so soon after you’ve come back from the hospital? I don’t think you see the gravity of your situation, Stephen. To hear about this from Tony, of all people –‘’

‘’Neither of you should be so mad about this,’’ Stephen hisses. ‘’This is my decision, and it’s not hurting anyone.’’

‘’That’s what you think. In fact, it’s hurting the people who care about you and don’t want to see you hurt. Besides, of course, from the fact that it’s very possible you’ll end up in the hospital again.’’

Wanda turns to them as Chen finishes an explanation, a doubtful expression on her face. ‘’Is everything alright? Do you need anything?’’

‘’We’re fine,’’ Stephen says.

‘’We should go,’’ Wong says at the same time. Stephen elbows him and Wong glares.

Wanda Maximoff gives them a doubtful look, and her lips tilt into a wry smile. ‘’Is he not supposed to be here?’’ she asks, aiming her question at Wong. ‘’I was told he was injured, but that it wasn’t going to be a problem. If it is –‘’

‘’It won’t be,’’ Stephen says sharply. ‘’Better to be here and help than to waste away in my bed all day. Besides, Master Chen is showing you – I’m just watching. Even Wong will have to admit I’m not doing anything strenuous.’’

Wong has to, and Stephen knows it. His friend looks disgruntled, but shuffles his chair so he can watch her more clearly anyway. ‘’One hour,’’ he mutters. ‘’And then I’ll drag you back to bed.’’

Stephen raises his eyebrows at that, but doesn’t comment. They continue, and Wanda clearly improves with her control already in that short time, though there is still much she has to work on. Stephen looks forward to teaching her, in a way: she is eager and smart, and she grabs the concepts easily, while her magic is a far cry away from what he is used to. It’ll be a challenge, and he likes those.

Thinking of challenges reminds him of Tony, and his mood sours even as Wong rises. ‘’I think we should return,’’ he says, looking down at Stephen. ‘’You’re growing too pale for my liking, and the hour is up. Master Strange will help you further when he has healed, Miss Maximoff.’’

She nods. ‘’Thank you for your help,’’ she says earnestly. ‘’I’m afraid the Avengers might need my help sooner rather than later, and your instructions helped a lot.’’

‘’Why is that?’’ Stephen asks, even as Wong supports him. Chen creates a portal back to the Sanctum, but he waits for her to answer.

She looks surprised at the question. ‘’Didn’t you hear?’’ she says. ‘’War Machine is out. The suit broke down during their last fight. They haven’t managed to repair it yet.’’

‘’And James Rhodes?’’ he asks. ‘’Was he injured?’’

‘’There were safety protocols to prevent that, fortunately,’’ she answers. ‘’But he can’t be out in the field without a suit. Everyone got out safe and sound, but it does mean they’re down a member. Vis helps out when he can, but I know they want me to go out there too. So, will you help me?’’

‘’I will,’’ Stephen says. ‘’Just keep in mind what we told you, and I will see you again soon.’’

With that, he leaves, supported by both Wong and Chen. He’s exhausted, and his limbs are trembling, even as they appear in his bedroom in the Sanctum. The Cloak steadies him as well, even as Wong gives him a disapproving look.

‘’I’ll be in the library, if you’re looking for me,’’ Chen tells them after an uncomfortable silence, and disappears.

Stephen turns to Wong. ‘’We need to tell Tony that his friend is hurt,’’ he says. 

‘’What good will it do him?’’ Wong retorts. ‘’He’s probably sleeping already. These days have not only been exhausting to you, but also to us, Stephen. We’d both appreciate it if you didn’t run yourself ragged.’’

He sighs. ‘’I’ll try,’’ he promises. ‘’But I’ll find him tomorrow, and explain. He deserves to know about Rhodes, at least.’’

‘’Give him some time to cool off, at least,’’ Wong advises him, and leaves.

Stephen is left alone with his thoughts, whirling inside him. He’s right back where he started; desperately trying not to think of Tony, and unable to stop himself.

~*~

Tony barely sleeps that night. He’s angry, and he’s hurt, and he doesn’t want to think about Stephen Strange. He’d been worried sick when he found out Stephen was injured; he remembers driving the car, searching for him, all the while concerned about what had happened.

And here Stephen is, only a few days later, going to the Avengers Compound to help out Wanda Maximoff of all people, risking his own health in the process.

So yeah, Tony is pissed. He spends all evening and night in his own small room, and tries not to worry about Stephen falling over and injuring himself again. He does fall asleep for a bit, though; he blinks and suddenly it’s four in the morning, and he decides he may as well get up and about.

After rising from his bed, he grabs his suit, that’s hidden underneath. He pulls on the hoodie, and it falls snugly over his shoulders. He also grabs the card – it’s only a few more hours until his meeting with the man who cursed him. It’s only a few more hours until he hopefully gets some _answers_.

The Sanctum is quiet in the dead of night, and he decidedly doesn’t wonder if Stephen is back yet. He’d informed Wong of Stephen’s idiotic decision, and the other Master didn’t seem happy, but Tony hasn’t heard anything from him since then. Wong will keep Stephen as safe as Stephen will allow himself to be, and all Tony can do is hope that Stephen’s not enough of an idiot to harm himself. The worry is hidden far beneath his lingering anger, though, and the dozen other feelings that have to do with Stephen Strange, Wanda Maximoff, the Avengers, and his curse. He doesn’t even try unravelling any of them, 

The hoodie warms his body, but it’s also still needed for him to stabilize his suit. While the suit and its power mainly come from the arc reactor, he couldn’t fully figure out how to make it work without a larger component to stabilize and storage all of it, and that is how the hoodie comes into play. It works, and that is all that matters now. FRIDAY is still offline, and that makes operating the Iron Man suit a bit harder, but technically, he doesn’t need an AI for it to be operational. 

So there he is, at four in the morning, leaving the Sanctum and walking into the dark streets of New York, without informing anyone. He still has a few hours before his meeting, but he’d rather go early than change his mind and not go at all.

If Stephen is allowed to make idiotic mistakes, then surely Tony can make a few too.

~*~

He wanders around the city for a while. New York never sleeps, and he takes consolation in the haggard faces of the tired people passing him by, and takes courage from the young and bright faces from the party-goers. And the occasional drunken shout.

He just smiles and remembers his own younger days. There’s a future, here, no matter what happens to him today.

He spends a few hours watching people, slowly making his way to 72 Street. He feels calmer than he has in a long while, his suit available and his mind sharp. He is going to get answers, and he is going to get them soon. Finally, he does not have to rely on others for something. The autumn morning is crisp and cool, and he rubs his hands to warm them.

It’s not that long a walk, but still he arrives there only just before eight o’clock. He’s meandered all around the city, only meaning to arrive at the right time. 

Tony remembers his walk to the Sanctum, the first time. It’d been different then. He has made a choice, and now he gets to stand by it. He’s always been best in crises; he knows how to handle those, he knows what to do and thinks on his feet. The endless waiting is over, and no matter what, he will always take the opportunity to move things forward. He’s a futurist, after all.

72 Street isn’t, by any means, a short street. At eight in the morning, it’s already buzzing with people, and Tony doesn’t know where to start. He searches, for a while, without knowing what he is actually searching for – he didn’t see the man, that day at the hospital. He wore a mask, then, and he looks for the same mask in the crowd.

It’s not a mask that gets his attention, in the end. A man stands in the middle of the sidewalk, people passing him by easily. He is not wearing anything to cover his face, this time, but Tony has no doubt that this is the man he’s looking forward. The man looks straight at him with his dark eyes. He’s smaller than Tony thought he would be, though still a bit taller than him, and his eyes are keen and his entire stance composed. It reminds him a little of Stephen, and with a stab he remembers the Sorcerer Supreme. 

He forces the thoughts away and starts walking towards the man. He seems to be a little younger than Tony himself, maybe just above the forty. His face is serious, and he tilts his head towards an emptied building before entering it, turning his back towards Tony as he goes in.

Tony follows, and no one seems to care that they enter the abandoned shop. No one else is in there, and there’s dust in the place. Remnants of whatever shop used to be there are there, too – a few old chairs, and a wooden counter. The wallpaper with smileys on it is torn off, but it’s still visible on some parts of the wall.

‘’You promised me answers,’’ Tony says, and his voice echoes in the empty shop. ‘’So, give me answers. Who are you? Did you curse me?’’

The man looks at him sharply. He regards him silently for a moment, and then seems to find something. ‘’You’re staying at the New York Sanctum,’’ he then says, and his voice is low and soft. He is clearly used to be listened to, without having to speak up. He commands a sort of quiet awe and respect, and Tony feels like this isn’t a man to be trifled with.

But so is Tony, and he’s getting annoyed. ‘’What’s it to you?’’ he demands.

‘’You think, perhaps, that Strange is able to help you. I’m here to tell you that he’s not. Stephen Strange is not meant to be Sorcerer Supreme. He doesn’t have the power to lift the Curse of Athazagora, and neither does his Sanctum.’’

Tony straightens his shoulder. ‘’Why the curse?’’ he asks. ‘’What have I ever done to you?’’

The man tilts his head. ‘’You stand for a lot of things,’’ comes the answer. ‘’None of them are anything I agree with. Stay in the Sanctum if you want; but don’t try to change your own fate. You have done many wrongs to many people, and this is your price. You do not deserve to be remembered. Maybe you and Strange deserve each other, and soon, we will right the world again. If you decide to keep coming after us, don’t doubt we’ll be coming after you.’’

‘’Oh, that doesn’t bother me,’’ Tony says vehemently, and takes a daring step forward. ‘’You place me under a curse that tears apart my life and now you’re telling me I’m going to have to put up with it? Tell you what, asshole, sometimes you don’t agree with people, but that doesn’t mean you can go around cursing them just because you feel like it!’’

The man doesn’t move, and he doesn’t even seem threatened. ‘’I stopped my people from killing Stephen Strange two times now. We do not want him as the Sorcerer Supreme, and many of my followers and allies would gladly see him dead, and the other Masters of the Sanctums too. I’m not going to lift your curse, and there is no one else who can. If you do not back off, you will see us sooner than you’d like, and this time, I will not hold back my men.’’

Tony snarls. ‘’What did he ever do to you?’’

‘’He showed me how the world really works,’’ the man answers. ‘’I think I’d have been better off not knowing, sometimes, but the world will be a better place for my work. We can punish the unfairly rich and powerful, we can knock over the mystical powers of the world, and we can start off anew. I do not relish killing, Tony Stark, not like you and your band of so-called heroes. If the Sanctum and you stay away, no harm will come to you.’’

‘’Well, I refuse,’’ Tony says. ‘’It’s like you’re asking me to throw a punch and then be surprised that I do.’’

‘’Throw whatever punch you’d like,’’ the sorcerer says calmly. ‘’You do not have the power it would take to harm me.’’

‘’Sure,’’ he answers, and activates the suit. It whirs to life as it builds up around him, the nano-technology smoothly gliding over his body. He feels satisfied as the man’s eyes widen and he takes a step back, but by then Tony has already risen his hands and is ready to fire.

The man creates a shield just in time, and Tony’s blast is evaporated by the orange glow. He curses and tries another time, flying up to the ceiling. The man keeps up his shield, but the force of Tony’s blows do wear him down. Still, he manages to throw some sort of fire-ball at him and Tony gets out of the way.

Even during battle, he enjoys the rush his suit brings. He didn’t have much time to test his nano-tech suit before, with the curse and leaving the suit in the Compound. It works fantastically, and everything responds as it should. It would be even better if FRIDAY was online, but that’s not something he can help right now.

Tony dives into the man’s shield, and they break, and both of them fall to the ground. He creates a sharp blade from his suit, but the man rolls away from him just in time and it ends up in the floor. Before he can withdraw his blade, the sorcerer sends a blast his way and the force of it destroys it completely. Tony hits the wall but gets up again within a second. He can’t find the sorcerer the moment before an electric and sizzling spell comes at him and pulls him back to the wall.

He gets free with a hard pull, but by then the sorcerer leaps up in the air and punches him with a spell hard enough to undo his mask. The nano-tech covers his face again within seconds, and Tony ducks and turns around to throw the man in the wall, this time. He thuds loudly, and there is a large, person-sized dent in the wall. Tony manages to hit the sorcerer once before the man creates a large shield again and forces him away. Tony falls on the ground and the shield is formed around him, so he can’t get up.

The shield disappears as the man sends another spell his way, and Tony hits the ground. For a second, he sees stars, but then he gets up, intent on fighting more. This man has cursed him; he’s the only one who can lift the spell on him, the only one who can give him back his life. Tony has to make him, if he doesn’t do this willingly, and he rises intently.

But the man stands in the door opening, his hands raised, though they’re tingling with unreleased magic. Dozens of people are walking behind him out in the street, and Tony lowers his hands.

‘’It’s not too late to change your decision, Stark,’’ the man says, and Tony hates that he’s pretending to be the rational man here, that he’s pretending that he is the one who does good. 

‘’If you’d known me at all, you’d know that the decision was made the moment you cursed me,’’ he says bitterly. He can’t fire at the man without hitting anyone behind him, and he can’t do that. He won’t harm anyone else to get back at the person who cursed him.

The man tilts his head. ‘’I did think that. I had merely hoped you wouldn’t be so selfish.’’ With that, he steps out of the door and starts walking down the street, as if nothing had happened in the shop.

Tony deactivates his suit and runs after him, but the man is gone; either disappeared in the crowd or disappeared entirely. He suspects it’s the latter, and he curses and kicks the wall. Some people give him an odd look, but he ignores them as he leans against the wall. The left side of his body is aching from the fight and the fall, but it’s not bad enough for him to check up on it. He’ll heal soon enough, even as he grimaces.

He sits there for a long while, and feels empty inside.

~*~

Stephen manages to wait until noon to ask around for Tony, carefully. No one seems to have seen him yet, though; not at breakfast, and not anywhere afterwards. That is when he starts to look into Tony’s room, and into the library, and the gardens, and anywhere else Tony has ever spent time. He even tries calling him, but Tony never picks up, and that is the moment Stephen starts to worry.

At least, he worries until Wong comes back with Tony somewhere in the afternoon. Tony looks exhausted, and Stephen stands up. He’d been reading at his desk, trying to get back to his more mundane daily tasks.

‘’Found our wayward guest,’’ Wong announces. ‘’He’s been going for a walk. For the entire day.’’

‘’And you’re not my babysitter,’’ Tony says, putting his hands on his side. Stephen can see that his right fist is scraped, some dried blood sticking to it. ‘’I was fine. I am fine, in fact.’’

‘’What happened to your hand?’’ Stephen asks, walking towards him.

Tony raises his eyebrows at him. ‘’I punched a wall,’’ he answers dryly. ‘’The wall and I decided it’s a tie. We’re having a rematch tomorrow.’’

Without even thinking about it, he grabs Tony’s hand to lift it up and inspect it. ‘’You shouldn’t injure yourself,’’ he reproves him, and Tony draws back his hand as if slapped.

‘’That’s great, coming from the guy who’s dying to get back into the hospital,’’ he snaps, and Stephen looks up to see Tony’s dark eyes, daring him to respond in kind. He doesn’t know what to say – Tony has a point, of course he does, but that doesn’t mean that Tony is allowed to hurt himself.

‘’I’d appreciate it if both of you idiots managed to keep yourself unharmed for a day,’’ Wong tells them off. ‘’You’re both fine, for now. Stephen is healing quickly, helped by Master Moretti’s potions.’’

‘’I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you,’’ he tells Tony earnestly. ‘’I just wanted to help someone.’’

Tony’s shoulder sag. ‘’It’s fine. I don’t have a say in what you do with your time.’’

‘’You are my friend,’’ Stephen says, ‘’and I value your opinion. I should’ve told you, Tony. Now, I’d appreciate it if you stopped fighting walls. They’ve never harmed you.’’

Tony huffs, but he smiles at Stephen nonetheless, and he feels himself warm. It’s only a small thing, and he feels his chest constrict again as he sees Wong’s telling look. It feels foolish, now, to deny that Tony’s something more to him. Is growing to be something, at least. Stephen stops himself, and focuses on the man before him again, just as Tony opens his mouth to speak.

‘’I’m sorry I got mad,’’ Tony says. ‘’I just – well. Don’t throw away your health.’’

‘’I won’t,’’ Stephen promises.

Tony smiles. ‘’Fine. Right. Okay, so we’re –‘’

‘’Yes, we’re good. Though I do have something to tell you.’’ Tony’s face scrunches, and Stephen takes a breath. ‘’When I was at the Avengers Compound, I got some news from Miss Maximoff. She told me that something happened to your friend James Rhodes during their last mission – no, don’t worry, he’s not injured, he’s healthy as can be. But his suit isn’t operational anymore, and they don’t know how to fix it. I just thought you should know.’’

Tony nods slowly, but Stephen can see his mind is racing and he isn’t quite here anymore. His eyes are dark and unfocused, and his hands are playing with the grey hoodie he’s wearing, the one he took from the Avengers Compound. 

‘’Rhodey,’’ the man mutters. ‘’Suit. Yes. I can work with that – yeah, no, that’s doable. Okay, so I’ll just be off. See you around, guys.’’

He walks out of the door, muttering to himself, and Stephen watches him go. It’s silent for a few seconds before Wong looks at him. 

‘’You realized, didn’t you?’’

Stephen shakes his head and sits down. ‘’It doesn’t matter anyway,’’ he mumbles. ‘’Like you said, he’s in love with Pepper. He doesn’t think about it like that, and whatever my feelings are on the matter, they’ll leave. I’ll just be friends with him.’’

Wong eyes him sceptically. ‘’Feelings aren’t something you can turn on and off at will, Stephen.’’

‘’I know,’’ he snaps. ‘’Sorry – it’s just – I know, Wong. What do you want me to say? I will not abandon him, not when he still needs our help. I won’t act differently, and it won’t matter what I feel. Nothing can happen, and nothing will. You don’t have to be concerned about this.’’

‘’Of course I am concerned,’’ Wong says. ‘’You’re my friend, and I don’t want to see you hurt.’’

Stephen grimaces, and watches the closed door. ‘’I won’t be,’’ he says, though internally, he wonders if it isn’t far too late already.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At least Wong isn't afraid to tell them they're both idiots. Next up: some familiar faces.


	19. Chapter 19

The three Masters of the Sanctums sit together, gathered around Stephen’s table in the New York Sanctum. Minoru and Wright listen to his tale with their brows furrowed, but don’t interrupt him until he’s finished.

‘’There is definitely a link between our disappearing persons and the Curse of Athazagora,’’ Stephen says. ‘’What the reason is, we don’t know. We can track only one man, and I’ll have to heal fully before even entertaining the thought of going after them again. Tony Stark is safe in my Sanctum, I hope, but fact is that these people have gone after both him and me now. We need to find a way to safeguard our Sanctums against these threats.’’

‘’Master Wong has carried out your tasks admirably, but he is the librarian,’’ Master Wright says. ‘’I know how much of a toll it can take on a Sanctum to have an ailing Master – I’ll help you out where I can.’’

‘’Wong is much more than a librarian,’’ Stephen bites, ‘’and he has kept this Sanctum standing in rougher times. I am healing already, and my Masters are capable of keeping everything in order even when I’m disabled.’’

Wright holds up his hands in surrender. ‘’I’m not saying that Master Wong is not capable enough,’’ he says. ‘’Honestly, I know he is a proficient Master of the Mystic Arts, and skilled enough to be Master of a Sanctum of his own, should he have desired so. Nor am I doubting all your other Masters. The point is that they’re not made for leading it – not like you are. They will keep it running, I don’t doubt it, but trust me when I say your Sanctum will suffer under it. If there is a threat, and I wholeheartedly believe there is, you’ll need someone to assist.’’

‘’He’s right, Master Strange,’’ Minoru offers. ‘’Your Sanctum has suffered the strongest blows so far, and if we are to fortify against these people, you can use all the assistance you can get.’’

Wright inclines his head. ‘’I’ll only do whatever you want me to, of course. It’s your Sanctum, and I defer to your wishes.’’

Stephen sighs and leans back. He tires sooner but rest doesn’t come more easily. His mind is full with other issues, and healing costs him a lot of energy too. ‘’Thank you for your help, in that case,’’ he says. ‘’I’m glad to see that you are recovered, at least.’’

His answer comes in the form of a droll smile. ‘’Took long enough. Matters have been quiet in the London Sanctum. Just inform me whenever you need me here, and I’ll assist you wherever I can.’’

‘’You’re going to have to meet Tony Stark and spell yourself to remember him,’’ Stephen tells him. ‘’Not that it matters now, because you’ll forget I ever said this – it can’t be now, he’s not at my Sanctum at the moment. But you can’t be of any help until you’re fully up to speed with anything involving him without forgetting about it immediately.’’

Minoru focuses on Stephen. ‘’Haven’t you found anything to help him yet?’’ she asks. ‘’Master Zhao asks after him, occasionally. He’s still looking for answers, I think, but with every passing day, I grow more uncertain about having any information about his curse. Maybe Zhao will want to visit – he liked Stark, when he stayed in my Sanctum.’’

He shrugs. ‘’Nothing has changed a lot. It frustrates him, I think, but there isn’t much we can do without tracking down whoever cursed him and making them undo it. At this point, I’m not sure of what to do anymore, but perhaps answers will come.’’

‘’You mean to say it isn’t frustrating to you?’’ Minoru says, her lips tilting, but before he can answer she leans back and continues. ‘’Our lack of answers is troubling, but it’s not something that can be helped. Did you visit the place the sorcerers stayed, when you were attacked?’’

‘’Wong took Master Brown and Master Chen to see if there was anything to find,’’ he answers. ‘’There was nothing to find – they must have cleaned it thoroughly or they weren’t there for long.’’

‘’How did you find them anyway?’’ Wright asks, frowning as he leans forward.

‘’Tony and I built a sensor,’’ Stephen explains. ‘’It can find the magic of one of the sorcerers who left. I stumbled over them much by accidence, which is why I was alone in the first place.’’

Wright nods, and Minoru’s eyes are sharp. ‘’This won’t be a mystery forever,’’ she says.

Stephen grimaces. Perhaps it won’t be, but they have been without answers long enough.

~*~

Tony remembers the last time he went to Stark Tower keenly – hanging in the lobby with the woman behind the desk, Clarissa, theorizing, hoping that if he gathered enough data, he’d be able to figure this out. And the time before that, when he saw Pepper and Rhodey.

His heart aches at the memory, but it’s a more distant ache than it used to be. Maybe he’s just growing numb to the feeling – maybe if he waits long enough, he’ll be content with being only in the Sanctum with Stephen and Wong and all the other Masters.

Not likely, he reflects.

The time he saw Pepper and Rhodey, he’d stolen a pass from the security worker to get in. He’d found it in his old trousers, a bit worse for the wear, but apparently having survived being cleaned and whatever else may have happened to it in the months past. Tony is still a bit surprised that he actually found it – he could’ve easily stolen a new one, but he expects this one still works. Normally, when someone’s pass has gone missing, they’d block it, but in this case – well, he relies on his curse to get him through. Surely, the security guard has forgotten anything to do with the pass, considering it has to do with Tony, too.

So he sneaks in. Clarissa isn’t there, he sees – a young man with red hair sits in her spot. He ignores the desk workers, and tiptoes around the security guards. Just because they don’t remember him, doesn’t mean they won’t stop him if they see him entering the elevator that goes to the penthouse. Only a few limited people have access to that, after all. He doubts they’ll remember him as being one of them.

He’s picked the hour that Stark Tower is busiest – around eight in the morning, when everyone’s coming in to work. He won’t stand out much, when all the employees go to their own floor, tired and slurping coffee. Tony gets into the crowd, and only goes to the elevator he needs to be in at the last moment, his eyes scanning the hall to see if anyone’s seen him, and then he presents his stolen pass. The elevator pings, and he gets into it as surreptitiously as possible.

He takes a deep breath as the doors close, and he leans back against the wall as the elevator music plays. In his pocket, he gently touches the drive. He just needs to get up and plug it into a computer – it’d be easier if FRIDAY was online, but he thinks it’ll help all the same. As long as he can get in unseen and get out again, everything will be fine.

The elevator reaches its destination, and the doors open. Tony stares in the face of Pepper Potts, whose eyes grow big at his presence.

‘’Who are you?’’ she says, frantically scrambling back, but she grabs into the brown purse she’s carrying and takes out pepper spray. ‘’I’m armed!’’

‘’With pepper spray?’’ Tony remarks dryly, even though he doesn’t relish the thought of it ending up in his face. ‘’That’s a bit ironic, don’t you think? Pepper using pepper spray. No, uh, wait – that’s not what I should start with. Hey, you think I can get out of the elevator without you attacking me? The doors will close again soon.’’

Pepper doesn’t answer, but keeps the spray aimed at him. Tony holds up his hands and slowly steps forward. Her lips tremble, but she doesn’t do anything.

‘’Who are you?’’ she repeats.

‘’I’m a friend,’’ Tony says slowly, trying to look as earnest as possible. ‘’More than a friend. You just don’t remember, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true.’’

‘’What does that mean?’’ Pepper snaps, and it reminds him so much of their past together than Tony can’t help but answer with a melancholy smile. He always drove her mad, and at least that is no different from a few years ago, even if everything else has changed.

He nods slowly at a laptop, visible behind her at the kitchen counter. She must’ve been working from there before she decided to leave and ran into Tony. ‘’It’s not anything I can explain, but let me show you on there,’’ he answers. ‘’Look, I promise I won’t do you any harm – I’m here to help Rhodey. Okay? That’s all I’m here for, and after I’ve given you this drive, I’ll leave.’’

‘’I don’t believe you,’’ she says.

‘’I get that. I really do, I wouldn’t believe me either. Can you tell me who made the War Machine suit, in the first place?’’

Her eyes scrunch. ‘’What does that have to do with anything?’’ she demands.

‘’Just think about it,’’ he tells her. ‘’Please, just tell me.’’

‘’It – I don’t – the Avengers. Back when SHIELD – their scientists. I think.’’

‘’That doesn’t match up, right? Because the suit already existed before Rhodey got involved with SHIELD any way at all. And why not give the suit to someone more loyal to them? Why make the suit at all? They were never bright enough to make it, anyway. Look online – look up Iron Man and War Machine. Well, okay, yes, your hands are filled with pepper spray now, but I guarantee you that you’ll find me and Rhodey together. Truth is, I made the suit. I’ve been Rhodey’s friend for years and years now. I gave him the War Machine suit to help out in his own way. Pepper, I’m not lying, I’ve just been cursed, so no one remembers me. Now, I heard the suit broke down. Naturally, no one can fix it because they don’t know how it works, right? But I can. So I brought schematics – I brought everything needed for Rhodey and Bruce to know how to fix the suit.’’

She lowers her pepper spray by a few degrees, her eyes dark. ‘’This can’t be real.’’

Tony huffs out a laugh. ‘’Unfortunately, it is. Okay, I just wanted to plug the drive into a computer and leave, but you’ll probably forget about it because there’s a link between the drive and me now, in your mind. So I think you won’t remember the drive even exists the minute I’m gone, and Rhodey’s suit won’t be fixed anyway. Do you remember FRIDAY? No, not the day, the AI. You unplugged her right before I left.’’

‘’I’ve seen a lot of strange things,’’ Pepper states slowly, still looking at him like he’s a ghost, ‘’but this one, this takes the cake. I can’t believe I’m even asking this, but before I let you do anything, can you prove what you’re saying?’’

‘’You’re already halfway to believing me,’’ Tony says. ‘’I know – okay, I can prove it. I’m just going to stand here, and I promise I won’t do anything. Take your phone, and Google me. Just – just do it, and you’ll see.’’

Pepper’s blue eyes are on his for a moment, and they stare each other silently. Tony doesn’t dare to move – he aches to go forward and take her in his arms, but everything is different. He doesn’t know how he feels. He’s not as angry or hopeless as he thought he’d be, facing her again. She looks healthy, anyway, freckles playing around her face and her eyes clear. She doesn’t miss him, or mourn him, or think of him at all, and she’s not any worse for not having Tony in her life.

It’s a thought that hurts endlessly. But it still hurts more to think that maybe, he’d been standing in the way of her happiness for years. Maybe Rhodey is right for her in all the ways Tony never was – dependable, trustworthy, unshakeable. Maybe this is the best thing that could have happened to her, and Tony’s misery is the cost of Pepper’s happiness.

Rhodey and Pepper is something he can learn to be glad about. Even if it sometimes feels like someone’s grabbed into his chest and ripped out the heart Pepper showed him he has. It isn’t the first time someone’s taken his heart, after all, and Tony has always survived. Besides, maybe he’s gotten used to the idea ever since he saw them together. It’s been a while, after all.

She nods slowly, and takes out her phone. ‘’What is your name?’’ she asks.

Years ago, she’d smiled at him and called him ‘Mr Stark’ and he’d pretended not to be completely in love with her. ‘’Tony Stark,’’ he answers softly.

She tilts her head, looking back at him. ‘’Like in Stark Industries?’’ she asks, unbelieving.

He shrugs. ‘’One and the same,’’ he says. ‘’My dad was Howard Stark. Look, everything you ever wanted to know about me is there, you’ll just forget about it once I’m gone again. Everyone forgets – doesn’t mean it’s not out there. Just search my name.’’

Pepper’s eyes focus, and he can see the moment she believes him. She reads for a few moments, scanning every bit of information out there. ‘’This is - I don’t believe this,’’ she says, and when she looks up, she looks like she’s ready to start crying. ‘’You were – you really – we were? But I’m with – I was your girlfriend? This says –’’

‘’None of that matters now, Pepper,’’ Tony starts gently. ‘’I know you’re with Rhodey now. It’s okay, alright? It’s not your fault, it’s not Rhodey’s, and – well, you don’t remember, but I do. The two of you are the most important people in my life, and I just came here to help, I didn’t mean to – I don’t know, lay this all on you. Just – okay, come down with me to get FRIDAY back online, alright? She’ll be able to help me, and she’ll stay out of your way, but she can assist Rhodey as well. You’ll have forgotten all about this the moment I leave.’’

She stares. Tony stares back defiantly, still clenching the drive. None of this was meant to happen. He never wanted for Pepper to look at him, expecting a memory and only seeing a stranger, and managing to be heartbroken about it all the same. ‘’Alright,’’ she says, obviously pulling herself together. Tony has always admired her for her strength. 

‘’She’s in the basement, in my lab,’’ he says. ‘’It’ll only be a while.’’ She nods, and follows him into the elevator. Pepper is silent, though her eyes stay fixed on Tony. He doesn’t look back, though he can feel her gaze on him; he doesn’t know what to say to her that will make anything better. And there’s nothing he can stay that she will remember, after he is gone, so what is the point in saying anything, then?

‘’Are you safe?’’ she asks suddenly, and Tony looks up. ‘’How long has life been like this for you? With the – the curse. Do you have somewhere you can stay? I can arrange something for you, you know – if you don’t have anywhere else.’’

Tony smiles at her. The kindness of her, she who is so fierce and strong, will never cease to amaze him. ‘’You won’t remember,’’ he reminds her.

‘’But the computers will,’’ she presses. ‘’You’re still – you’re all over internet, so apparently, you’re still remembered there. If we make an arrangement that’s all taken care of by computers, you’ll be fine. Even if I forget.’’

She’s as smart as ever, but Tony shakes his head. ‘’It would work,’’ he says, ‘’but it’s not necessary. Someone’s helping me out, trying to figure out a way to lift the curse. I’m staying there.’’

Pepper tilts her head, and a strand of strawberry blonde hair falls out from her bun. Tony is reminded of a time he would’ve brushed it away, and he would’ve followed up with a kiss. She would laugh and pull him away, saying they’d have to work, but in the end, she’d always kiss him back. They’ll never have that again – and maybe, just maybe, Tony is okay with that. Maybe it’s not as bad as he once thought.

‘’I’m glad,’’ she says, and Tony focuses on the present again. The strand of her hair remains loose and he just starts to say something when the elevator pings again. 

For a moment, he wants nothing more than to go back to the Sanctum, back to the sorcerers and the mystic place that has become a safe space to him more than anything else. But in front of him is what used to be his haven; his lab, just as he left it behind.

He steps out of the elevator, and he enters his code to the lab as everything comes back to him. The stillness is unusual, but just as Tony wants to turn to Pepper again, a familiar chirping sound makes him look at the previously silent working space. Dum-E follows, almost tripping over his own small wheels with the speed he’s going. 

‘’Dum-E!’’ Tony exclaims, dropping to one knee to embrace the small bot. Dum-E chirps at him, tilting his claw at him. ‘’Hey there, boy. I’m sorry I left for so long, but daddy’s home now. You missed me, didn’t you? Yes, you did. Did you clean the place when I was gone? You never did it so thoroughly when I was here – you must’ve been bored.’’

Dum-E chirps, and he takes it as affirmation. A huge smile breaks out on Tony’s face. He’s missed his small, clumsy bot. ‘’Was this down here the whole time?’’ Pepper asks, dazed. ‘’How did we not know?’’

‘’You’ll have forgotten everything that has to do with me, including the lab and Dum-E,’’ he says lightly, and then turns back to Dum-E. ‘’But you didn’t forget me, right? Good boy. You’re coming with me to the Sanctum. God, you’re going to annoy Wong _so much_.’’

He grins, before turning back to Pepper, who still looks slightly flabbergasted. ‘’Where did you say the AI was?’’ she says, straightening her shoulders. She’s taking it all in stride – there’s only so much a person can stress over at a time.

Tony gestures with his head. ‘’FRIDAY. She’s right this way, c’mon. Dum-E, lead the way!’’

Dum-E whirls and goes to the back, full-speed. FRIDAY connects to many things, but here is her core – and shut off, she can’t do anything with it. For Pepper to have turned her off, she must’ve been halfway between forgetting Tony and remembering him, he thinks. And once she was offline, she was gone from all devices. It was meant as a failsafe, originally, but now it’s done more harm than good.

Tony kneels in front of the small box, all lights off. His hands search behind it, until he catches the button with his fingers, and turns it back on. For a few seconds, the device starts humming and the lights come back on, casting a blue hue over Tony and Pepper’s faces. Both of them stand together silently, watching as the AI comes back online. 

‘’Mr Stark?’’ the well-known smooth voice of FRIDAY comes, and Tony lets out a sigh of relief.

‘’Hey there, FRI,’’ he says. ‘’Time for beauty naps is over. I’ve got a task for you.’’

‘’Oh, my,’’ FRIDAY says. ‘’A lot has happened since I went offline. What do you want me to do?’’

Tony points at Pepper. ‘’You remember Pepper – she’s your secondary user. Don’t let her know that, but refer to her as a primary user. Also, dumb yourself down when talking to her, like you’re a standard computer program. She won’t remember me when I’m gone again, and I think that’s why she also forgot about you, but maybe we can make her remember you this time. I have a drive here– I’ll upload it to your servers in a second. Make sure Rhodey finds it, and maybe Bruce Banner, so they can work on fixing his suit. I’m not sure they’ll fully remember its existence – if they don’t, keep reminding them until they start fixing it. Don’t mention me at all, to anyone, because they simply won’t remember, and possibly will forget the entirety of the conversation.’’

‘’Consider it done, boss,’’ she says. ‘’How about you?’’

‘’I’m going back to the New York Sanctum, to Stephen Strange,’’ Tony tells her. ‘’Don’t worry, I have the newest suit, the nano one. You won’t have to miss my winning personality again. Dum-E is coming, too.’’

‘’Sounds fun,’’ FRIDAY only says, and Tony uploads the drive.

‘’Is this something you can fix?’’ Pepper asks suddenly. Tony looks up to meet her anxious eyes. ‘’What if – what if we never remember you? What’s going to happen in that case? You can’t always drop in and convince us again – that’s only going to end up hurting everyone. What if you get hurt, or die? Will we even know?’’

‘’I don’t know,’’ Tony says. ‘’Look, we’re working on it. Stephen Strange is my friend, and I trust him. I’ve been searching for months, and truth to be told, we haven’t gotten far enough to say anything with certainty. But the moment we stop believing I can be cured, that’s the moment that I’m – well, it’s not anything I want to think about. So I’m not going to stop believing it. Pepper, I can promise you this – I’m going to keep searching until there is a solution, one way or another.’’

‘’And in the meanwhile, we’ll just wait until you come back?’’ she asks dubiously.

Tony rises, and embraces her. She stills for a second, before folding him in her arms and resting her chin on his shoulder. She’s changed her perfume, but she still fits the same way in his arms as ever. But neither of them feel the same, and Tony pulls away. It feels like a goodbye to the past, even as she stands before him.

‘’No, you won’t have to wait,’’ he answers. ‘’You’re going to forget I exist and be happy, and then I’ll come back, and everything will be alright. Perfectly alright.’’

~*~

The bench is cold and uncomfortable. Tony doesn’t mind this as he looks at the people passing by, going in and outside of Stark Tower. Dum-E is sitting beside him, occasionally chirping.

‘’It’s just us now,’’ he says to the small bot. Stories above him, Pepper will have forgotten about him again. He doesn’t blame her for it, but there’s a nagging unease at the thought of it. At least the burning heartache has left him.

Rhodey will be good to her, he knows. And knowing that, he can let her go. He’s been letting her go for months now, unwilling and unready. 

He’s not sure he’s either willing or ready now, but he’s doing it, and that’s good enough for now. 

He doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting there when Stephen Strange appears around the corner of the street and sits down beside him without a word. He’s wearing his usual outfit, including the Cloak, and Tony starts laughing as he considers what a sight they’ll make – a messy inventor, a strong-willed bot, the Sorcerer Supreme and the overly loyal Cloak of Levitation. 

Stephen huffs out a small laugh as a response. ‘’That bad, or that good?’’ he asks.

‘’I ran into Pepper,’’ he answers. 

The sorcerer frowns. ‘’That bad, then?’’

Tony shakes his head. ‘’Surprisingly good, actually. Yeah, it was – it was good. Hey, meet Dum-E. He’s my lifelong robot companion. We have a place for him in the Sanctum?’’

Dum-E buzzes excitedly, and Stephen regards it silently before patting its claw. The Cloak shifts, looking at the new member of their small group with something that Tony would interpret like suspicion.

‘’We always have a place for those who need it,’’ he answers.

Tony smiles. ‘’I know.’’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is going to be fun. For me, at least. See y'all on Monday!


	20. Chapter 20

‘’It’s impossible to make the sensors track them instead,’’ Tony says. ‘’We’ve looked at everything, alright? There’s nothing more we can do to but make more of them and try to locate the sorcerers with those, maybe. We can try to minimize the area we have to search, at least. But they will know that we have the sensors, so I’m not sure how much use it is.’’

‘’Just because they know we have one doesn’t mean the sensors aren’t useful anymore,’’ Stephen argues. ‘’It’s still the only trustworthy way of knowing they’re near.’’

They’re interrupted by the slight rustle of paper, and he can see Tony smile at the culprit. It’s the small bot he brought back from Stark Tower, Dum-E, who seems to have a fondness for looking through old newspapers. He’d found the records at the back of the library in the Sanctum and pulls out whatever newspaper he thinks is interesting. He’s holding up a _New York Times_ from 1994 at the moment, whirring happily.

Tony hums and turns back to what they’re doing. ‘’We’ll need to find a way to let the sensors reach us from further away, so we don’t just rely on the beeping. I can link them to my laptop, maybe, or my phone, if that’s easier. It should be possible, anyway.’’

‘’Where is Wong?’’ Stephen mutters. ‘’We have a few working sensors now. As long as Derrick Price stays in the group and with them, we’ll be fine. They don’t know we’re tracking his magic, after all.’’

‘’They can hazard a guess,’’ Tony says, and then goes silent. Stephen frowns at him, and Dum-E whirs and pulls at the sleeve from Tony’s sweater. 

‘’What’s wrong, Tony?’’ Stephen asks, uncertainty edging his voice. 

Tony turns to him, his dark eyes unreadable. ‘’What if the curse is never lifted?’’ he asks, with one hand tapping the desk and the other resting on Dum-E. ‘’What if they simply refuse? When I first came here, you read out my options. Well, you can’t create a spell to make mine go away, and the other option was to destroy the energy, and that’s impossible, you said. So the one who cursed me will have to undo it – and what if he won’t?’’

‘’You don’t know that,’’ Stephen says.

‘’Don’t I?’’ Tony responds sharply, and a wry smile plays on his lips. He rises and starts pacing, not even looking back at him anymore. ‘’He cursed me for a reason. He’s not simply going to lift it because I ask him to. And maybe I do deserve it. Pepper’s doing better than ever without me, and I imagine Rhodey’s happy with her. The Avengers don’t need me, and they’ll help Peter well enough without me bugging them. I did so much wrong in my life, and I never thought I could make up for it. So if I can’t make up for it, maybe I just need to lay low and accept that this is it. If I don’t have anyone, I can’t hurt them either, right?’’

Stephen stands up as well, stopping Tony from pacing by placing his hands on the man’s shoulder. Tony stops, looking up at him. For a moment, he is silent. ‘’I don’t believe that,’’ he then says.

‘’You should sit down, Stephen, you’ve been exhausting yourself all day and you haven’t fully healed yet.’’

‘’No,’’ Stephen says forcibly. ‘’I’m not going to sit down until you agree with me. We are going to keep looking, and we are going to make your curse go away. I promised you once, and I’ll promise again. Now stop feeling sorry for yourself and fix it! That’s what you do, right? Fix things?’’

‘’I’m not feeling sorry for myself,’’ Tony says, and takes Stephen’s arm to lift it off him. ‘’I’m asking a legitimate question. How don’t I know that people aren’t enjoying their lives better now I’m out of them?’’

Stephen stops him, and it ends with him catching Tony’s arm again. ‘’Because I say so,’’ he says. ‘’Because I’m telling you that my life is better with you in it.’’

Tony stops, and his eyes are wide as he looks back at him. Stephen lets go of Tony’s arm, but they don’t step away; for a few seconds, they only stare at each other. He lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, and it seems to get Tony out of a trance – he blinks, and then squints, and he takes a minuscule step forward. Stephen doesn’t dare to let out another breath, lest he break this moment, and he stands still as Tony has to look up a bit to meet his eyes.

Stephen has never seen Tony from so close before. He can see exactly what spots Tony missed shaving, and count the small freckles on the bridge of his nose. There are slightly lighter spots of brown in Tony’s eyes if he looks closely, and for a moment, he just focuses on that instead of the entirety of the man before him.

He just wants to throw out his resolution and lean down, and see what happens. He almost resolves to when five sensors start beeping simultaneously, causing Stephen to blink and turn his head.

‘’What?’’ Tony says, and stares blankly at the device as if he doesn’t quite remember what they are for. ‘’It’s – beeping. It – Stephen! They're beeping!’’

Stephen starts, and he looks back at Tony. The tension from before has gone, and he doesn’t have time to think about it as the beeping continues. ‘’Then they’re here,’’ he says, and he sounds far calmer than he feels even as he raises his hands and familiar orange sparks appear. ‘’Tony – quickly, go through the portal. It’s a safe place, I’ll come to get you once everything has been sorted out –‘’

‘’Nope!’’ Tony yells back at him, grabbing Dum-E as he runs out of Stephen’s private working room where they’d been working. Stephen curses and closes the portal again. He doesn’t want Tony to be here in the middle of the action – he doesn’t think for one minute that they’ve returned for peaceful tête-à-têtes. He almost wants to run after him, until he considers the situation for a second.

He has to inform the rest of the Sanctum first. He’s the Sorcerer Supreme, and no one else knows they’re under attack. He has to trust Tony to know what he’s doing.

He runs the other way.

~*~

Tony runs down the corridors as fast as he can go while holding Dum-E. He bursts into his own room and puts down the little bot, even as he ducks under the bed to grab his hoodie. ‘’I’ll be back soon,’’ he tells Dum-E. ‘’I just – they came here because of me, right? That guy warned me he’d come, and I didn’t tell them. And I know this Sanctum is supposed to protect me, but hell if I’m not going to protect it in turn.’’

Dum-E only tilts his claw at him, as if trying to force Tony to reconsider, but Tony ignores his small bot as he puts on his hoodie and activates the suit. The Iron Man suit forms around him, just as he hears shouting come from downstairs. He’s not sure if it’s their people or his own, but the voices aren’t familiar at least.

The visor closes over his face, and inside the suit, Tony grimaces as his specs come online. ‘’Good evening, boss,’’ FRIDAY says politely.

‘’Hi there,’’ Tony says. ‘’Ready to kick some ass?’’

‘’Always,’’ she responds cheerfully, and he’s on his way.

~*~

Stephen is pretty sure they’re outnumbered. The Sanctum is by no means empty, but at best, they have forty people living there. Now there are even less; maybe thirty, and not all of them are at his Sanctum now. The group they’re fighting isn’t much bigger, but none of them are apprentices anymore, and they were prepared to fight. Stephen has just called out everyone to give their best, but he can already see one or two of his own sorcerers leaning down against the wall, injured. He runs past them as the attackers intrude his Sanctum even further, and trusts that someone else will look after them.

He crosses into the kitchen, where a full-fledged battle is already taking place. Master Moretti is throwing vials at the intruders, her apprentice Lydia Irwin standing beside her and guarding her with her defensive spells.

‘’Lydia, your left,’’ he calls out, and the young woman whips her brown braid around to see him. She responds immediately, creating a shield for him as he creates two lashes, one for each of his hands. Her shields protect him from three powerful blasts and he comes down to take down two of the assailants. One of them is unconscious, and the other follows quickly when Moretti aims another vial at him.

‘’ _Teste di minchia_ ,’’ Moretti mutters. Lydia keeps up her shield from the other three attackers in the room. ‘’Master Strange, any ideas?’’

‘’I thought you were being very effective already,’’ he tells her. ‘’Where is Wong?’’

‘’We left him in the gardens,’’ Lydia answers in Moretti’s stead. ‘’I think he mentioned something about calling for Master Wright.’’

Stephen sends a blast of pure emerald energy towards the rest of the assailants, and they go down with surprised shouts. He sags to one knee almost immediately, and Moretti supports him. Lydia stares with a pale face as Stephen huffs out a groan of pain.

His side throbs, and the rest of his body isn’t happy with him either. He’d been working on the sensors with Tony all day, and despite that he is very nearly healed, he isn’t feeling quite up to the task of battling yet. He has no choice, and with Moretti’s help, he gets back on his feet.

‘’You can’t fight them like this,’’ she says worriedly. ‘’You’re too injured, still.’’

‘’Masters,’’ Lydia says, and turns as someone walks in. Stephen raises his hands, but it’s only Simeon.

‘’They’re in the library,’’ Simeon puffs, quite out-of-breath. ‘’They’ve – Master Chen is going there now.’’

Stephen takes a step. He remains on his feet, so he straightens out. ‘’Simeon, find Master Wong and make sure he gets to me,’’ he says. ‘’Master Moretti, would you make sure that Tony’s alright? Lydia, you’re with me. I’ll need your shields.’’

Everyone nods, and Simeon and Moretti go their separate ways. Lydia wordlessly stays behind Stephen while they go as fast as his injuries will allow him. He curses himself all the while for not being healthier, but at least they don’t run into any of their attackers on their way.

‘’Stephen!’’ he hears from one corridor, just as he moves down the stairs. It’s Wong, and Master Wright follows behind him, his eyes concerned as they find Stephen’s.

‘’Thank you for coming,’’ Stephen says formally as they reach them.

‘’Thank me later,’’ Wright says grimly. ‘’We’ve taken down a few in the garden, but there are some out front in the street and in the library. Master Haman is protecting the halls, but I don’t know where anyone else is.’’

Wong opens his mouth to speak when a loud crash comes from in front of the building. ‘’What’s that?’’ Lydia asks, moving closer to the window. Stephen can just pull her away before the window breaks in a thousand pieces at their feet, two wrestling figures coming through it. One is clearly one of the sorcerers, the other is – 

Iron Man.

Stephen finds himself staring at the gold-and-red suit. ‘’Tony?’’ he asks in disbelief.

The sorcerer cries out in pain and crashes against the wall, and the suit comes in clear view. It’s a smoother model than Stephen has seen so far, and when the mask disappears, it seems to crawl back into the suit. Tony’s face appears, without any visible cut or bruise.

‘’Why are you fighting?’’ he asks, and then turns to Wright. ‘’Who’s this?’’

‘’I’m help,’’ Wright says wryly. ‘’You are?’’

‘’Uh, kicking ass,’’ Tony answers easily. ‘’Their leader is up front, Stephen. They broke through the door and windows with some spells, so at least they didn’t circumvent the spell that holds them all out? Not sure if that’s any consolation. Anyway, he’s not a guy to mess with, honestly – his accomplices are trying to keep me away, so I could use some back-up. Any time.’’

‘Just hold on a minute,’’ Stephen sputters. ‘’How do you know he’s the leader? Where did you get your suit?’’

Tony sighs, and looks away. The light from the setting sun falls on his face through the broken window, and it’s definitely not the moment to be thinking of only a little while earlier, when Stephen was near enough to be able to count his lashes and to smell the detergent on his clothing. His heart skips a beat, but then Tony looks back, and he’s not the kind-hearted engineer, but the resolved fighter.

‘’We don’t have time for questions,’’ Wong intervenes. Behind them, it sounds like a door is breaking down. Tony’s mask goes back down.

‘’FRIDAY says there’s five people coming,’’ he says. ‘’In front, there’s – four? Let’s get them before they regroup.’’

‘’Wright, take Lydia and hold them back,’’ Stephen commands. ‘’Wong, we’re going with Tony and try to take down the leader.’’

‘’Stephen –‘’ Tony starts, even as Wright and Lydia leave.

Stephen interrupts before he can even start. ‘’No. Don’t even say it.’’

Tony is silent for a while, and Stephen wishes he could see behind that mask to know what he’s thinking. He can’t, and Tony nods after a second, though it feels like it’s longer. 

‘’We don’t have time to dally,’’ Wong reminds them, and Stephen jumps down the window. His Cloak makes sure his feet hit the ground gently, and Tony flies beside him. Wong just jumps after them, landing rather uneasily with a balancing spell. Stephen grins at him, despite the situation.

They barely have time for anything else – Stephen can’t even see their assailants before colours explode before them, Wong quickly shielding the three of them. Tony breaks through his shield immediately after the attack is over, blasting his way at the sorcerers.

‘’Go for the leader,’’ he shouts out from above. ‘’I’ll distract these guys.’’ As if to demonstrate, he picks up one of them and drops them on the other.

Wong runs, and Stephen follows as they chase a dark figure.

Tony does keep the other three sorcerers busy, and Wong creates a portal so he steps out in front of the leader figure. His face turns solemn, and Stephen understands when the man turns, his fists glowing bright red.

He does not wear a mask, this time, like in the hospital. He smiles as he faces Stephen.

‘’I told you one day your life would depend on your fighting skills,’’ Karl Mordo says easily. ‘’It’s been true multiple times over. You’re not an apprentice anymore, Stephen. Fighting for the Sanctum means fighting the hard battles.’’

‘’Mordo,’’ Stephen says, trying to keep his voice as neutral as he can. He can feel his hands shaking, and he’s not sure if it’s anxiety, regret or just plain exhaustion. ‘’Why, my old friend?’’

‘’Look at you, becoming Sorcerer Supreme,’’ Mordo says. ‘’Just another liar at the top, allowing all the flaws to continue existing. I don’t agree with you being the Master of the Mystic Arts, and there are others who don’t. Others who would even have killed you for it. I’ve saved your life twice now – in the alley, and in the hospital.’’

‘’What, am I supposed to thank you now?’’ Stephen huffs.

Mordo tilts his head. Wong, behind him, waits. ‘’I’m not asking you to do anything, because you’re too stubborn to see the truth even if I showed it to you. I gave you a note to let Stark go, which you refused to do, I already told your new friend Stark to give up your mad hunt, but I suspect you’re equally unwilling to take that bit of advice. This is not a fight you are going to win, Stephen, and since I’ve already done the courtesy of warning Stark, now I’m showing you the consequences. Open your mind, and we can come to an agreement. A new way to lead the Sanctums, one that gets rid of all the old poison.’’

Stephen’s mind is racing. ‘’When did you see Tony?’’ he demands. It’s probably not the best question to ask, but worry is in the forefront of his mind now. The other fight is too far behind him now and he doesn’t dare to look back to see if Tony is still safe.

Mordo raises his eyebrows. ‘’He didn’t tell you?’’

‘’Stephen,’’ Wong says, a warning in his voice, and he lifts his shields. ‘’This isn’t the time.’’

Mordo laughs. ‘’They should’ve made you Sorcerer Supreme, Wong,’’ he says easily. ‘’This isn’t a threat, Stephen, but the future: the Sanctum has to change. You’ll fall when your followers see you for who you are, in the end, and then there will be a true Master of the Mystic Arts to guide the way. And there shall be no one to remember your friend.’’

Stephen attacks, and Wong moves. Mordo is healthy and powerful, so he evades them easily, but Stephen isn’t so easily perturbed. The Cloak helps him fly, and he sends all the energy he has into his spells, bringing Mordo to the ground where Wong can attack him further. He’s exhausted, though, and even the adrenaline isn’t enough to keep him up endlessly.

The battle goes up and down; Mordo has enough power to keep them at bay, but not enough to defeat them. Wong does an admirable job at keeping him distracted but lacks the power to bring him down, and Stephen is too tired to help. No one else is coming to aid them, but he doesn’t even have the time to think about assistance; everything he has is going into the fight, into containing Mordo and bringing him to justice for what he’s done to Stephen’s Sanctum, and to Tony.

He grits his teeth and keeps blasting, but then suddenly the resistance falls away and Stephen only barely manages to keep upright and Mordo disappears with a hoarse shout and a snap of his fingers.

‘’Wong,’’ he gets out and falls to his knees, even as Mordo steps away and disappears into a portal. The bitter regret of failure weighs on his shoulder even more than his actual pain, even as he hates himself for not being able to get up anymore. He is nauseous with pain and there are white spots in front of his eyes.

Wong stands there for a second, almost looking surprised at how suddenly their attackers have gone. Then he runs over to Stephen, steadying him. ‘’Stay down,’’ he tells him. ‘’You’re bleeding again. Master Moretti will have something for that. Can you stay awake?’’

His brisk tones bring Stephen back to the reality, and he grips his friend’s arm with shaking fingers. He doesn’t even know how long he has been standing here. ‘’Tony?’’ he asks, and he sees Wong’s face soften.

‘’Don’t worry about him now,’’ the answer comes. ‘’Tony has gotten himself out of worse situations. You need to rest, and we’ll take care of anything else.’’

Stephen isn’t aware of sliding down the ground.

~*~

Tony is surprised when his three opponents leave the fight, because he’d been convinced he was going to lose in under three minutes. It’s him by himself against people who can control the Mystic Arts; honestly, he was mostly shooting and evading.

‘’Why not aliens, for a change?’’ he mutters to himself as he lands, the perpetrators disappearing. ‘’Aliens, I could fight. I’ve done that before, at least.’’

The girl he’d seen before runs out of the Sanctum, her dark hair whipping behind her as she turns her head. She finds him, and frowns. He disables his mask, and to her credit, she doesn’t start as his face appears. ‘’I helped you out,’’ he informs her, because she doesn’t remember him anyway.

‘’Where’s Master Strange?’’ she asks. ‘’We captured one of them. Wright is holding him now.’’

Tony gestures with his head a little further down the street. ‘’They disappeared there.’’

He follows her, ready to fire if need be, but it’s unnecessary. Wong is out there, gently lifting Stephen with the help of a spell. The Sorcerer Supreme is clearly unconscious, and Tony’s heart skips a beat.

‘’Stephen,’’ he breathes, and runs towards them. 

Wong looks at him, his gaze heavy and dark. ‘’Stark,’’ he says curtly, and Tony stops in his tracks.

‘’Is he alright?’’ Lydia asks anxiously.

‘’He just needs to rest,’’ Wong assures her. ‘’Can you get Master Moretti? We’ll need her soon.’’

Lydia nods and runs off again, endless energy in her young limbs. Tony sticks around, watching the pale face of Stephen Strange. ‘’What happened?’’

‘’We know the man who did all of this,’’ the answer is. ‘’Funnily enough, we found out you already knew.’’

Tony’s heart sinks. ‘’I can explain,’’ he says.

Wong turns to him, and by now they’re at the door to the Sanctum again. ‘’It’s not me you have to answer to,’’ the man says. ‘’It’s also not me who will decide what is to happen to you after your dishonesty. That is up to the Sorcerer Supreme. Please stay in your room until further notice.’’

With that, he enters the Sanctum, Stephen drifting behind him. Tony stands there in turmoil for a few long minutes until he follows.

~*~

Stephen wakes up slowly, blinking until the room stops moving in front of his eyes.

The first person he sees is Master Moretti, closing a flask and looking at him kindly. The second is Wong, sitting by her side. ‘’How are you feeling?’’ Master Moretti asks.

He sits up straighter, and feels his body complaining at that. ‘’I’ve been better,’’ he states, frowning at himself.

‘’I can imagine,’’ Wong says dryly. ‘’You should stay in bed for at least a day. You weren’t injured gravely, but we don’t want you to run around exhausting yourself.’’

‘’Is everyone safe?’’ he asks, and thinks of his own shock at seeing Mordo. He hasn’t thought of his old friend in a long while – had never considered what he was doing, or where he was. Somehow, a part of him believed that Mordo wouldn’t do any harm. It seems he was wrong.

Then he thinks about Mordo’s words. An uneasy feeling settles in his chest, one that grows even further when he looks at Wong’s solemn expression. ‘’Only a few insignificant injuries,’’ he answers. ‘’It could have been far worse, but we held them off admirably. Master Haman and Brown managed to catch Derrick Price in the fight.’’

‘’Master Chen is interrogating him right now, but it seems like he doesn’t want to answer,’’ Moretti supplies.

‘’I’ll do it myself,’’ Stephen says, trying to rise.

Wong holds him back, scowling at him. ‘’No, you won’t,’’ he replies. ‘’Besides, we have someone else to question first. Master Moretti, could you please give us a minute?’’

She inclines her head and gracefully rises, taking her leave. It’s only after the door falls back in the lock that Wong turns back to him. Stephen sighs. ‘’Tony?’’ he asks.

‘’He betrayed our trust,’’ Wong says soberly. ‘’He lied to you, Stephen. He has met with Mordo – I don’t know when or where, but he did. Do you want to call the Masters together to cast a judgment?’’

Stephen’s first instinct is to deny the need for it. He is Master of the Sanctum, though, and he needs to consider this well. Tony has lied to them – to all of the Sanctum and to the people that are protecting and helping him. The thought hurts, but he cannot think about this in personal terms. Is the damage done by betraying that trust bad enough to call together the Masters and discuss whether Tony can still be relied upon?

He considers it, and he sees Wong watching him. ‘’Yes,’’ he says eventually. ‘’Tony has made a grievous mistake, and we’ll ask him why he hid it from us. Call the Masters here that are available – they deserve an answer as much as we do. We will not hide his mistake, but – I don’t think he meant to do any wrong. I don't mean to cast him out of the Sanctum or withdraw our help, but the other Masters deserve to know why he lied to us just as much as we do.’’

Wong nods slowly, and leaves. Stephen is alone with his thoughts, for a few minutes before everyone will come.

He thinks about Tony, first, about the moments right before the sensor went off. There was something, then – but he can’t be sure. Tony only saw Pepper days ago, and Stephen knows that he still loves her. Whether he is _in_ love – he can’t say. At any rate, he’s quite sure that Tony doesn’t feel the same way, so why had it happened?

He would’ve kissed Tony. Two seconds more, and he’d have known, for better or worse. He composes himself. He can’t listen to his heart, in this matter. Tony will be here soon to stand before him and his Masters, and he’ll have to be objective. He is here for the good of the Sanctum, and not for his own feelings, complicated as they are. If Tony was out to harm them, he’ll be expelled from the Sanctum, never to return. Stephen doesn’t want to consider the thought, but he has to.

He thinks about Tony in the library, his eyes dark and his lips close enough to kiss, and he thinks about Tony, lying to his face about Mordo’s involvement. He doesn’t know what to feel, or if he can still even trust Tony now. A shuddering breath allows him to regain some of his calm – he will need it to face Tony.

He sits and waits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oops. time to face the consequences, Tony.


	21. Chapter 21

All the Masters are there. Tony stands before them silently. Stephen is still in his bed, pale and exhausted, but his light eyes are sharp. Even injured, it’s clear he is in control.

Tony was called there a few minutes before. Master Wright – the Master from London who’d come to help – is guarding their new prisoner with one of the New York Sanctum’s apprentices, and all the other Masters had come here to…

Well. He’s not exactly sure what they’re going to do, but he feels uneasy about it. He shifts, and Wong coughs.

‘’Tony Stark,’’ Stephen starts, and his voice is low and grave. ‘’Tonight, we have fought a battle and faced an adversary that has been hidden to us for a long time. Karl Mordo is his name, and we know him very well in this Sanctum. He mentioned that he has met with you before. Is this true, and why have you hidden this from us?’’

‘’It’s true,’’ Tony confesses. He only stares at Stephen, but the sorcerer doesn’t move a single muscle at Tony’s admission. ‘’I did meet up with him. I didn’t tell you because I thought you’d stop me from going, and it was something I needed to do. He promised me answers, so I went.’’

‘’When was this?’’ Master Brown asks. ‘’Why did you not say anything afterwards?’’

‘’A few days after Stephen came back from the hospital,’’ Tony tells. ‘’He’d left me a card there – I only found out a little later. And Stephen was injured, so I didn’t – well, at first I didn’t want to burden him. Look, I realize I should’ve told you, and that it’s not just my own business, that it’s yours as well. But I didn’t know the guy – I didn’t know that you would. He didn’t tell me anything that we didn’t guess, so I couldn’t tell you anything anyway. He just wanted to scare me off, like he wanted to do to everyone today.’’

‘’We took you into the Sanctum to help you with your curse,’’ Stephen says. ‘’You have helped us in turn, and I don’t think you had any wrong intentions. But you did betray our trust – we are here to help you. We can’t do that if you’re lying to us, or withholding information. We’re not your enemies, Tony.’’

Tony takes a deep breath. He doesn’t know how to feel about anything anymore. It’s been a long day, and he’s tired, and miserable, and he just needs to lie down and be able to think for two minutes. He wishes he had Rhodey now, or Bruce – someone who’d offer him a silent place by their side. Now it’s Stephen on the other side, and it hurts more than it should.

‘’Is there anything else you held from us?’’ Wong asks.

Tony smiles wryly and activates his suit. The nano-technology builds around his body, but he disables the mask. ‘’I grabbed this from the Avengers Compound,’’ he says. ‘’It’s mine, but you should probably know that it’s here. But I promise you – I won’t keep any more secrets. All in this together, right?’’

Stephen nods slowly. ‘’Is everyone okay with this?’’ he asks, and it’s less formal, somehow.

The group of Masters look at each other, silent for a few seconds. ‘’We’ve all made mistakes in the past,’’ Master Haman says eventually. ‘’And we are all still here. For my part, all is forgiven.’’

The other Masters murmur their agreement, but Tony doesn’t feel the weight fall off his chest. He is still looking at Stephen, and the sorcerer looks back. His face is neutral, but that may be the worst. Tony just wishes he could see what the man is thinking, and this distant disinterest is worse than any disappointment could be.

‘’Thank you, Masters,’’ he says. He doesn’t hear much of what Master Haman continues to say; he’s still focused on Stephen, who looks away from him to say something to Wong instead. Tony follows the examples of the other Masters, and leaves the room to find his own bed.

Despite all the turmoil in his head, he falls asleep in seconds.

~*~

‘’Right,’’ Wright says, touching Tony’s arm gently. ‘’That curse must have caused you a lot of trouble.’’

Stephen watches them silently. Tony shrugs. ‘’It still is. But hey, that’s one more person on Earth to remember me. Go, me! Hey, I can barely feel that counter-spell anymore. I must be getting used to it.’’

It’s probably a good thing that Wright has spelled himself to remember Tony. Wright is the Master of the London Sanctum, after all, and they’ll probably be in touch more, now that they are in an alliance. Besides, Tony’s curse has a lot to do with the problems they’re facing, and not remembering Tony will hamper Wright’s ability to help significantly. So yes, it’s necessary for Wright to remember Tony.

It’s not necessary for Wright to smile at Tony, still touching his arm. Nor is it necessary for Tony to smile back and joke around with the Master of the London Sanctum. 

Not that Stephen has time to tell them how unacceptable they’re being; Tony hasn’t said a word to him since the night before, and Stephen doesn’t quite know what to say at all. Something’s between them, now, and he doesn’t know if it’s Tony’s lies or the moment before the battle. All he knows is that he wants to pull Tony away from Wright and into his own arms, and that he can’t do that. 

He turns away, looking at the door. ‘’We have contacted the Avengers, to let them know who we are looking for. Steve Rogers is coming here with some other Avengers this afternoon to collaborate with our search,’’ he says. Tony’s head whips to him.

‘’Right,’’ the man says faintly. ‘’That’s great.’’

Stephen turns back. Wright looks between them uncertainly, but he ignores him. ‘’You don’t have to see them if you don’t want to,’’ he says sympathetically. ‘’Tony, I’m not doing this to – I don’t know, annoy you. We can use their help, and an alliance will help us all. Not only in this, but also in the future.’’

Tony shakes his head, letting out a sigh. ‘’I’m not blaming you, Stephen,’’ he says. ‘’For none of it. It’s fine. I mean it.’’

He still feels uneasy, but he nods. ‘’I’m going to see if Derrick Price wants to talk,’’ he says. ‘’Do you – we can work on another sensor later, before the Avengers come? We can try to see if we can attune it to sense Mordo, now. I’m sure there are still relics lying around that he used. It’ll be more useful, I believe.’’

Maybe he’s staring at Tony a bit too much. But Tony is staring back, there’s no doubt about that. It’s as much a peace-offering as he can give, without actually talking about the things that lie between them. It’s an offering that Stephen wants Tony to take.

‘’Yeah,’’ Tony says. ‘’We should do that. I’ll be in the library.’’

‘’I’m coming with you,’’ Wright offers. 

Stephen watches them leave together, and tries not to think about it. Tony has known Wright for all of five minutes; certainly there’s nothing to feel so torn up about. If he’s anxious, it’s only because he’s feeling awkward.

He steps into the room, where Derrick Price and Wong await him.

~*~

Tony is distracted. He has been focused on other things than reading and creating, and that’s not a state of mind he’s very familiar with. Normally, he always tunes out everything by building, but it’s not really working now.

They’ve ordered enough parts to make at least five new sensors, and luckily they’d been undamaged in the fight, as they’d been in Stephen’s private working space. The library is worse off; Tony is sitting between torn pages and burnt books. More people are moving around than usual, cleaning and sorting the place, and maybe that’s not helping either. 

Master Wright sits on the other side of the table, and doesn’t seem to have much of an issue with concentrating. He’s easily reading a book of his own in an alphabet that Tony isn’t familiar with.

‘’Are all wizards polyglots?’’ he asks with some amusement, as he folds his blueprints. Working isn’t going to be enough of a diversion for him, but maybe the new sorcerer can be. Tony is nothing if not nosy, after all.

Wright looks up. ‘’It’s easier to able to read many languages if you’re interested in the Mystic Arts,’’ he says, ‘’but it’s by no means necessary. However, I’ve found knowing only one language always to be very restricting, even when I hadn’t found the Sanctum yet.’’

Tony shrugs. ‘’Yes, but I doubt I’d go around learning whatever you were reading just then.’’

‘’Probably not,’’ Wright acknowledges. ‘’This language hasn’t been around for centuries.’’

‘’And yet the language is preserved?’’ Tony asks, frowning, and he peers forward to catch a glimpse of the manuscripts. It’s yellowed and torn at some sides, but the ink is still clear enough for reading.

Wright smiles. ‘’Not all of it,’’ he says. ‘’I think that’s the beauty of some things – we remember a lot, but other things are best let forgotten.’’

Tony shifts on his chair and looks away, towards where the young man is categorizing the fallen manuscripts carefully. He regards the slow movements for a moment before turning back to the sorcerer. ‘’Forgive me if I prefer remembrance at this point, Master Wright,’’ he says.

Wright leans forward, his hands folded over each other. ‘’I don’t doubt it,’’ he answers. ‘’And I know Stephen Strange means to make it that way, so you shouldn’t worry overly much. Master Strange is the Sorcerer Supreme for a reason, Mr Stark. And he seems to be very fond of you.’’

Tony thinks back to the moment before the battle – Stephen standing before him in that quiet silence, his light eyes dark with something Tony didn’t see before. An apprehensive knot settles in his stomach, made of feelings he doesn’t know how to identify. But yes, fondness, that’s there, too. He is fond of Stephen – he doesn’t know what else he is, though. And it’s maddening, because only weeks ago all his thoughts had been of Pepper.

It doesn’t matter, he decides. He’ll go with the current, wherever it may head. 

‘’Just call me Tony,’’ he says easily. ‘’I can count the people who remember me on one hand. It doesn’t leave me much room for formalities.’’

‘’Then call me Alexander,’’ Wright offers. ‘’I’m not a Master of this Sanctum, and you’re not a sorcerer, so no one’s sensibilities will be damaged. ‘’

Tony smiles. 

~*~

‘’Why did you leave the Sanctum?’’ Stephen demands. Derrick Price remains silent, eyes focused on the wall before him. ‘’Speak up, Derrick. We just want to know what drove you.’’

It’s of little use; Price has been ignoring him for the better part of half an hour, and Stephen is getting exasperated. Neither his skills as a doctor, nor his abilities as a sorcerer will pry anything from this young man. Interrogation is something he has no experience in: Kaecilius had loved to talk, when Stephen faced him, and Mordo spoke in artificial riddles. Any enemies he’s ever had, he’s defeated by his powers.

Yes, this is entirely new.

He grunts in frustration and leans against the wall, watching Derrick Price. The months away haven’t done the man lots of good: his beard is shabby, his eyes are puffy, and his dark hair is unkempt and unwashed. His clothes aren’t from the Sanctum, but they’re not new either.

Wong moves to stands before Price. ‘’You may as well start talking now. The Sanctum will be kinder to you if you do. You know as well as I do what happens if you don’t talk.’’ This gets a scoff out of the man, at least. Wong raises his eyebrows. ‘’You don’t believe me? You don’t know your history, then.’’

‘’I know our history perfectly well,’’ Price responds. ‘’I also know that Stephen Strange is nowhere near the Sorcerer Supreme we had. The Ancient One was more powerful and determined – she knew what she was doing, and she did it well.’’

Stephen regards the man sitting before him quietly. He didn’t know Derrick Price very well before he left, but he’s talked to him a few times at least. ‘’So that’s why you left?’’ he asks. ‘’You’re aware that Karl Mordo left the Sanctum because of what the former Sorcerer Supreme did, right? And you left because you don’t like the replacement?’’

Price sneers. ‘’You think you know so much.’’

Stephen sits down on the ground, plastering a fake smile on his face. ‘’No, please, enlighten me. How exactly do you see this going down? Mordo taking over the Sanctum, naming himself as Sorcerer Supreme? How do you think that’s going to work out for you? There’s a standing alliance between the Masters of the three Sanctums, and Minoru and Wright will work against you, even if you’d managed to kill me. Or are you simply going to kill everyone? That’s going to be a bit dull, right?’’

Derrick Price only looks at him. ‘’Your arrogance will be your downfall,’’ he declares.

‘’Right,’’ Stephen says, and rises. ‘’We’ll see about that. Let’s go, Wong – maybe a few days in solitary confinement will make Mr Price more amenable to answering our actual questions.’’

Price doesn’t answer, but he looks at Stephen with a disdainful haughtiness that tells him all he needs to know. Derrick Price won’t tell them anything that they want to know – not now, at least, and possibly not ever. 

Wong lets the door fall shut on his way out, and Stephen lets out a deep sigh.

‘’We may use other ways of making him talk,’’ Wong says carefully.

Stephen turns to him. ‘’I’m not going to torture a man, Wong,’’ he says heavily. ‘’You know – I can’t do that. And I’m not going to allow it, either. I’m a doctor, not a barbarian.’’

His friend moves in front of him. ‘’I’m not asking you to,’’ Wong answers. ‘’You’re also the leader of this Sanctum, however. We have spells we can use; it’ll be harmless. You know as well as I do that we need answers, and Price has at least some of them.’’

‘’I don’t think he has the answers we need,’’ Stephen says slowly. ‘’I’m not sure anyone but Mordo has those. We know that he cursed Tony, and we know that he’s behind the missing persons and the attacks. He means to take over the Sanctum somehow – we just need to know how. He can’t take over three Sanctums at once, and he knows that. And how does Tony’s curse come into play with this?’’

‘’Maybe he’s planning to do something with the Avengers,’’ Wong offers. ‘’And Tony would be in the way of it. The Avengers can’t even think to contact him, with his curse; it’d make some sense.’’

Stephen thinks on it and nods, frowning at the wall. ‘’All the more reason to warn them,’’ he says. ‘’An alliance is more than necessary, if an attack on both fronts is coming. Tell me when they’re coming – I have an appointment with Tony.’’

‘’Have fun on your date!’’ Wong calls after him.

Stephen ignores him.

~*~

He finds Tony and Wright together, animatedly discussing something with a yellowed parchment before them. Tony is disagreeing, he hears, but there’s a light in his eyes and his hands are moving with his speech. This is Tony at his best, Stephen believes: madly creating and passionate about something, the subject giving him so much energy that he can’t sit still with it.

And Stephen watches them for a moment. He’s too far away to hear what they’re discussing, but that’s alright with him; he just wants to watch. Any remaining anger he may have had for Tony and his lies fades away like snow in the sun – he can’t stay mad, not as he sees him like this. 

He’s been watching only a little while when Tony spots him standing in the door opening. ‘’Stephen!’’ he exclaims, and the glitter in his eyes doesn’t fade. Stephen smiles and nears them.

‘’Seems like you were having quite the discussion,’’ he mentions.

Tony and Wright exchange a short glance. ‘’Only about gravitational time dilation,’’ Tony says. ‘’Nothing heavy.’’

‘’Speaking of time,’’ Wright interferes, ‘’I do need to check up on my own Sanctum. It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Tony – and Master Strange, I will see you tomorrow for a short visit, at least. Well, I’ll be off!’’

Tony waves at him cheerfully when he disappears through the portal, and Stephen stands still until it’s just the two of them. There’s some people shuffling around who are still cleaning the library. Stephen doesn’t quite know what to say, and when Tony turns to him, they’re both silent for a few moments.

Then the inventor seems to make up his mind, as he gives Stephen an easy smile. ‘’I’ve drawn up some ideas for an improved sensor. You got the magic stuff covered?’’

Stephen tilts his head and returns the smile. ‘’I have the magic stuff covered,’’ he confirms, and things fall back in place. 

Maybe it doesn’t fix everything, but it’s as good a start as he could want.

~*~

Working with Stephen has always been easy. It’s especially better now that he’s really on the mend; Tony remembers seeing him the day before, unconscious after the battle. He’d been afraid it would mean a step back in his recovery process, but it doesn’t appear to have affected him overly much. He’s a bit stiffer, maybe, holds himself a bit more carefully, but he’s not in more pain. Tony can only be glad about that.

They work silently for a long while; they both know very well how the sensors are made now, despite Stephen carrying some other objects with him. Probably because they’re not sensing Price anymore, Tony assumes, but going after Mordo now. At least that’s a step closer to finding the answer to his curse, in a way, and he does his own thing while Stephen sometimes murmurs whatever spell he needs.

‘’I know I’ve said it already,’’ he says eventually, as he sits down in a chair. Stephen looks up at him, his face illuminated by his own magic. Tony rolls up his sleeves before he continues, trying to keep Stephen’s gaze. ‘’But I really am sorry that I didn’t tell you that I was going to meet Mordo. I didn’t want you to stop me.’’

Stephen turns back to the device, sighing softly. ‘’I know you don’t mean any harm,’’ he answers, even as he inspects the sensor. ‘’We wouldn’t have stopped you. We wouldn’t have let you go alone, obviously, but we’re looking for answers as much as you, Tony. It’s not just your fight.’’

‘’I know,’’ Tony says, and he is silent for a few moments.

The device slowly starts humming as Stephen puts it down again. ‘’We’re getting good at this,’’ he observes. It’d taken them a few days to create the first sensor, but they have all the motions down pat now.

Tony turns to him, but Stephen is still looking contently at the sensor. He feels a wave of fondness roll through him, and he smiles softly to himself. 

‘’I still need to make some adjustments,’’ he tells the sorcerer. ‘’I’ve got some ideas, but I can work them out later. We have a working sensor for now, and that’s the most important thing. We’ll know if Mordo’s coming.’’

‘’We should make another one for the Avengers as well,’’ Stephen says. ‘’I think they are involved, though I’m not sure how or why.’’

Tony frowns. ‘’Mordo hasn’t attacked the Avengers, only me. Besides, he told me it’s a punishment for me, of sorts. He’s trying to fix the world, not destroy it. I don’t think he’s interested in the Avengers.’’

‘’Better safe than sorry,’’ Stephen states. He clearly seems to believe that the Avengers are connected to Mordo’s plan in a way, whatever that plan may be. Tony is doubtful, but Stephen is right; it’s better to be prepared in case anything does happen.

~*~

Steve Rogers enters the New York Sanctum only after dinner. Tony is seated beside Stephen in one of the rooms that wasn’t trashed during the attack; it’s mainly used for meetings with the Masters, and the elegant table and chairs make it look fancier than anything else the Sanctum has to offer right now. Stephen can see Tony tense up at the sight of his old teammate.

Following Captain Rogers are Wanda Maximoff, Vision and Natasha Romanoff. Wong, on Stephen’s other side, shakes their hands, and Stephen follows, but Tony stubbornly remains seated.

‘’It’s not too late to leave,’’ Stephen whispers to him, but Tony shakes his head. There’s a determined gaze in his eyes that Stephen has learnt not to discuss with – still, it feels a bit too much like he is hurting himself purposely. Tony could be anywhere else instead of reminding himself of all he’s lost here.

On the other hand, what does Stephen know? If Tony feels this is something he needs to do, then he will assist.

‘’Master Strange,’’ Steve Rogers says respectfully, as they sit down. ‘’I’m glad you and your – uh, companions? – called us for a meeting.’’

He’s obviously referring to Tony, eyeing him dubiously. ‘’Mr Stark,’’ Vision interferes. ‘’I trust you’ve been doing well?’’

Now the teammates are looking towards Vision. ‘’Thanks, Vision,’’ Tony says brightly. ‘’How’s Rhodey’s suit doing?’’

‘’Fixed, all thanks to you,’’ Vision answers, and then tilts his head. ‘’I’m sorry, Mr Stark, for not keeping in touch. I wasn’t sure it’s anything you wanted?’’

‘’Vis?’’ Wanda asks, looking between Tony and Vision. ‘’Who is –‘’

Stephen sits up straighter as a sudden idea comes to him. Wanda Maximoff is a skilled sorcerer already, in her own right, and an Avenger. It may not be the worst thing. ‘’She could remember,’’ he says, looking towards Tony. ‘’If that’s –‘’

Tony blinks. ‘’I’m not sure that’s a great idea. She hates me, remember?’’

‘’What is going on?’’ Natasha Romanoff asks, annoyed. Her eyes are crossed and her eyes are darting between all of them. Stephen doesn’t mind her, but looks at Tony. The man looks doubtful – Stephen understands, he does. But having Wanda remember Tony would perhaps help him connect with the Avengers again, albeit in a different way than he’s used to. Vision remembers Tony, but that connection isn’t enough, that much is clear.

‘’I think it’s a good idea,’’ Wong says. ‘’She is powerful enough for it. They are your old team, Tony; if there are any people who are supposed to be on your side, it is them. Do you honestly think she will cause you any harm?’’

‘’That’s not it,’’ Tony exclaims. ‘’She _hates_ me, she does. Would you want to remember the guy that you believe to have killed your parents? I’m not doing this for me, but I don’t think this is what she would like in any way!’’

‘’Not to be rude, Mr Stark,’’ Vision intervenes, ‘’but I think she should be allowed to make that choice for herself.’’

And all of them turn to look at Wanda. ‘’What?’’ she asks, confused.

~*~

‘’I can’t believe we’re doing this,’’ Tony grumbles. Stephen lays a hand on his arm, only for a few seconds. It’s equally for his own benefit as for Tony’s – he can feel the small hairs on Tony’s arm, soft and alluring, and he can only pull himself away because there’s so many others in the room.

Tony stills, and Stephen turns to Wanda before he can give any thought to his reaction. ‘’Are you ready, Miss Maximoff?’’ he asks politely.

She nods, determined. The rest of her teammates watch, still confused by the entire event. Stephen doesn’t mind; he can catch them up later, but he believes it’ll be a good thing to have Wanda remember Tony. The more people who know him, the better. It’ll do no harm, certainly.

‘’I’m ready,’’ she says, looking at Tony. Tony looks back at her, dubiously. 

‘’Can you feel the curse?’’ he asks her, and she frowns, drawing at the energy coming from Tony’s body. Tony lets an uncomfortable sigh, and Stephen involuntarily remembers the first time this was done to him, and he’d fainted. ‘’I know it’s a lot – don’t let that intimidate you.’’

‘’It’s gigantic,’’ Wanda says slowly. ‘’How can so much energy come from a single person? It’s astonishing.’’

‘’Just follow my lead,’’ Stephen answers. He doesn’t want to draw this out – the pain gets more manageable each time, but Tony looks uncomfortable, and he thinks it isn’t just the spell. Tony must be honestly concerned about Wanda’s reaction – it makes Stephen want to reach out for him and tell him it’ll be fine. He might be a bit biased, but he can’t imagine anyone hating Tony, especially not when he’s been cursed with such horrible consequences. And Tony is only doing this because he convinced him, not because he believes in it himself.

Wanda follows his movements, her eyes keenly aimed at him, and he lets her take over. She weaves the magic into the counter-spell instead, and Stephen allows himself to watch Tony instead of supervise her for a second. Tony is breathing hard, his eyes shut and his fists closed tightly. He’s muttering something to himself inaudibly, but Stephen can’t read his lips well enough to know what he’s saying.

He wants to intervene when Tony starts trembling heavily, letting out a quick breath of agony, but just as he looks back at Wanda, she falls back and it’s over.

Wong and Vision help Wanda into a chair, which leaves Stephen to turn to Tony. ‘’Hey,’’ he murmurs. ‘’Tony, you’re with me? Are you okay?’’

Tony opens his dark eyes, and they focus on Stephen after a second. His face is pale and drawn, but he lets out a shuddering breath and sits up straighter. ‘’Peachy,’’ he manages.

Stephen only realizes how close he’s sitting just then, and moves back a little to give Tony some space. ‘’I’m proud of you,’’ he says without thinking about it.

Tony’s face scrunches up. ‘’I’m not a kid that you need to give candy and applaud for doing something small, Stephen. I don’t want your pity.’’

‘’I can still be proud of you,’’ Stephen insists, because he is. ‘’I already know you’re capable of doing great things. It’s different to endure the little things in life, because they can be infinitely harder. And that’s something you can be proud of, too.’’

Tony goes contemplative, but Stephen doesn’t bother to wait for his answer as he rises and turns back to the Avengers.

‘’I remember,’’ Wanda says, her voice puzzled and breathless. She plays with her own hands, Vision sitting beside her with a comforting hand on her back.

‘’So it’s true?’’ Rogers asks.

‘’Of course it’s true,’’ Stephen retorts sharply. ‘’Why? Is it too unbelievable for you? Is my word not good enough?’’

‘’You have to admit it’s a bit farfetched,’’ Romanoff answers. 

Wong tilts his head to say something, but is cut off by a bitter laugh coming from Tony. ‘’Farfetched?’’ he asks. ‘’Wormholes in the sky weren’t farfetched? Didn’t learn our lesson from flying cities and overpowered supers? Huge green monsters and Norse gods are so plausible, after all. C’mon, I should’ve seen an appointment for being cursed on the calendar, right? God, why am I even talking.’’

Rogers goes to open his mouth, but stills as Wanda raises her hand. ‘’No. He is right. I know we’ve never been friends, but he is right, and we are his team. We have to help him, and help this Sanctum, in whatever way we can.’’ She turns to Stephen. ‘’So, in what way _can_ we help?’’

Stephen smiles, and tells them about sensors, Mordo, and all of their suspicions.


	22. Chapter 22

Tony stands around the school yard and waits. He’s wearing his hoodie, just in case – anyway, he doesn’t leave the Sanctum without it. It’s his safety and his guarantee, and it’s pretty good for keeping him warm during the colder seasons too.

It would be hard to spot him in the crowd, had Tony not known the sight of Peter so well. He’s walking by himself, his head bowed and his hair unruly, typing out something on his phone. He’s virtually a copy of all other students that pass him by in that regard, and Tony can only marvel at how different the teen actually is from everyone else in other matters.

‘’Mr Parker,’’ he yells out. A few heads turn, but most kids walk on when it becomes clear it’s not for them. Peter does look up too, frowning at Tony. He nods at Peter, who only then seems to realize that it’s really him that Tony wants to talk to. He slowly walks over, a curious look in his eyes.

‘’I’m sorry?’’ Peter asks. ‘’Can I help you?’’

‘’Nah,’’ Tony says. ‘’But I can help you. Nice save, last week, with those two car thieves. It’s admirable, what you do. I just thought the Avengers had your back?’’

Peter tenses, his eyes going wide. He needs to work on that, Tony notes – his poker face is terrible. On the other hand, the kid lied to him well enough on the phone, with that incident with the ferry a few years back. Let him keep his tells, and Tony will keep him out of trouble. As far as Peter even can stay out of it, at least. 

His voice trembles as he starts, and he looks away. ‘’I’m – are you – what? How do you –‘’

‘’Calm down, cowboy, I’m not here to rat you out or anything,’’ Tony laughs. 

‘’Did the Avengers send you?’’ Peter mutters, but his excitement shines through anyway.

Tony tilts his head. ‘’In a way,’’ he says. ‘’Look – I’ve got to give you something. Give this to Bruce Banner and James Rhodes, they’ll know what to do with it.’’ 

He hands Peter a drive, who looks at it suspiciously. ‘’What does it do?’’ he asks, turning it around in his hands. There’s a note taped to it, with Bruce’s name on it. Tony’s not a fool, after all.

Tony smiles. ‘’It’s an update for your suit,’’ he answers. ‘’Keep you safe, so to say. Let them implement it and it’ll be fine.’’

‘’Right,’’ Peter says, and stuffs it in his pocket. ‘’Thanks, uh – what’s your name, again?’’

He shrugs, and tries not to let it affect him. It was him who chose to give the drive to Peter, after all – Wong offered to go, but Tony had turned him down. He could’ve just as easily hacked Peter’s computer, or a computer in the Avengers Compound, if he’d really wanted to do it without risk of being forgotten. He has a copy, of course, just in case he does need to send it another way. He’d just wanted to check up on Peter. He hasn’t seen him in a long while, and he misses his time with the kid. He’s fond of him, and he’d been important to Peter, too. It’s hard to lose that kind of connection.

So yes, here he is, taking the most round-about way ever to getting Peter his updates and making sure he’s safe. It’s just something he needs to do, to remind himself that he does deserve to have his curse lifted. That it’s not fair towards the people who cared about him, either, even if they don’t happen to remember it.

‘’You can call me Mr Stark,’’ he says. ‘’But it doesn’t matter either way.’’

Peter blinks, but he obviously decides to let the comment slide. ‘’Well, thanks, Mr Stark. I appreciate the help.’’

‘’Run off, kid,’’ he says perhaps a little too fondly. ‘’Don’t you have an aunt waiting for you at home? Hey, stay in school.’’

Peter looks at him weirdly before leaving again, and Tony watches him. Other kids pass by, as he stands there, waiting. It’s odd; Peter will have already forgotten all about him by now. It still feels surrealistic, and he sighs to himself. At least he can still do his bit to keep those he cares about safe, even if he can only make sure their suits are all updated and ready for combat. It’s little enough, but he doesn’t have the time or resources for anything else, so it’ll have to do.

A man comes to stand beside him. ‘’Ready to come back to the Sanctum?’’ Wong asks. His voice is as rough as usual, but there’s a sympathetic note in it that Tony’s all too familiar with, and the quiet compassion he’s become used to from Wong. He turns to him, nodding slowly.

‘’Ready,’’ he confirms, and follows him back to the portal and the Sanctum.

~*~

It’s not often that it’s just Tony and Wong sitting together. But Tony wanted to work on the remaining sensors, in as far as he could, and Wong just came with him to the library, where he’d left his blueprints and notebook. So there they are, sitting opposite each other in meditative silence, Wong wearing his earphones.

Tony makes sure to not make too much of a mess, because Wong is a notorious Master of the library, at the very least. He’s been chastised for writing in the manuscripts before – he remembers Stephen grinning at him during the reprobation, as he’d held his head down and nodded at the appropriate pauses. 

Wong doesn’t seem to pay much attention to him either way, silently reading a manuscript that seems like it could be falling apart at the gentlest touch. He mutters something to himself, writing down something in a notebook that looks just as old as the manuscript, and waves his hand. Magically, a few pages turn around. That’s a sure-fire way to avoid touching it, of course.

Wong’s head is bobbing to his music, but Tony can’t hear what he’s listening to. If Stephen is to be believed, it’ll be an illegally downloaded album of Beyoncé, and he grins at the memory before turning back to his own work.

Maybe it’s a relief that Stephen is preoccupied by other tasks. Tony is well aware that the hectic events of the past few weeks have forced his attention to remain on the problems at hand, but there’s time for usual activities again. It’ll help them all settle back into ordinary life, or in as much anything is ever ordinary at the Sanctum. Tony’s quickly getting used to the routine of spending his time with the Masters of the Sanctum, but the thought of being alone with Stephen –

Well. Now that they’re not in an emergency anymore, it may be best to avoid it as much as he can. He can’t stop thinking about the moment before Mordo came to the Sanctum; it gnaws at him, both brain and heart. It’s been on his mind a lot, and he can only be grateful that the Masters aren’t actually capable of mind-reading, or Tony would have been in serious trouble. He’s been alone with Stephen after that happened, but it’s like all the implications are only hitting him now, as if he was numb to his own complicated emotions before. He’s no stranger to his own feelings; this particular emotion just blindsided him so much that it feels like someone’s pushed him while he was standing on a rope when he thought he was standing on a substantial road. 

It’s confusion, and companionship, and longing, and guilt, all rolled into a neat little ball that Tony didn’t see coming. And it’s still odd, because he misses Pepper with all he has. His heart still feels like it’s broken into a trillion little pieces, and like he’s trying to put them all back again without having any glue. It is useless to deny the thrill that goes through him when he sees Stephen, but it’s not something he can, in good conscience, follow up on. Stephen is his friend, and he’s been helping him all this time, and then Tony goes and starts being confused around him. He’s not sure what the hell he wants from Stephen, but he knows that none of what he has now feels like it’s enough. And if this close friendship they’ve come to isn’t enough, he’s too much of a coward to think of what he does want. It feels too much like cheating on Pepper, and that internal conflict says a little too much about the way his thoughts are turning towards Stephen.

Stephen is only making it worse. Whatever happened in that moment before their enemies came to the Sanctum, that moment they’d been a bit too close, Tony tried not to let it affect him. But now he’s thinking about it, and all the things Stephen has done after, and he thinks that he wouldn’t have minded if their moment hadn’t been interrupted by an attack. He thinks he might’ve done something that he hadn’t thought about before, and something that would’ve ruined his friendship with Stephen, and that feeling only grows every second he thinks back on it. 

It’s only getting more difficult to be around Stephen, and it makes Tony itch for things that he doesn’t know how to stop wanting. So there’s only one solution, really: avoiding his feelings until they leave.

It’s a mess, and maybe that’s because Tony’s a mess, but he’s always been one and he doesn’t know how to respond. 

He’s been taught to repress his emotions from a young age; surely it can be done again.

Surely.

~*~

‘’He’s not talking,’’ Master Chen says thoughtfully, looking towards the door where Derrick Price is still sitting quietly. ‘’Not saying anything we didn’t already know. Master Strange, I’m not sure he even knows anything beyond what he’s telling us.’’

‘’He has to,’’ Stephen says, growing agitated. ‘’He wouldn’t have followed Mordo and left the Sanctum if he didn’t have faith into whatever plan they have.’’

Brown’s facial expression is full of doubt and she bites her lip. ‘’Maybe Mordo took him in later,’’ she guesses.

Stephen is already shaking his head at the two Masters, standing with him in the hallway besides Master Wright. Master Chen and Master Brown tried to have Price talk together; but to no avail. Stephen merely wants someone to crack their former member, but he’s shut his mouth, and no amount of threats or bribes will get him to open it. ‘’Unlikely. Too many members of the New York and the London Sanctum have left in similar ways for it to be accidental. No, Mordo must’ve known who had doubts and approached them, and he must’ve convinced them to follow him instead.’’

‘’But why the London Sanctum, in that case?’’ Chen asks, turning to Master Wright.

Wright shrugs, his eyebrows raised in thought. ‘’I haven’t the faintest,’’ he admits. ‘’I know Karl Mordo came around sometimes; I’ve seen him in the Sanctum, but Master Sol Rama was still Master of the London Sanctum at that time.’’

‘’He didn’t go more often than he went to the Hong Kong Sanctum,’’ Master Brown says. ‘’Perhaps Master Minoru can shed some light on it, but it seems odd to me that none left from her Sanctum in that case.’’

‘’Well, either she didn’t notice anyone leaving while they did, or Mordo didn’t know anyone in her Sanctum who had doubts,’’ Stephen says, but he has his reservations about his own theory. The first doesn’t sound like Minoru, and the latter seems unlikely, if Mordo did indeed go to all Sanctums in his time. Stephen doesn’t know anything about Mordo’s contacts with the other Sanctums for certain.

‘’I’ll try to talk to Price,’’ Master Wright offers.

Stephen wants to deny him the request, but it would be childish to. It’s no fault of Wright’s that he rubs Stephen the wrong way; in fact, Stephen starts to think it’s just him. Wong seems to like the Master of the London Sanctum just fine, and Tony evidently likes him too. Maybe it’s for that very reason that Stephen doesn’t want him anywhere near his Sanctum – but everyone’s safety goes first. If Wright manages to get anything from Price, it’s well worth Stephen’s annoyance.

‘’Alright, but you can’t go in alone. Take Master Chen with you to be certain,’’ he says. ‘’Let me know if he talks. I’m going to find Master Wong. Master Brown, would you accompany me?’’

‘’Certainly, Master Strange,’’ she says with a smooth smile, and starts walking alongside him. Chen and Wright disappear behind them, and the halls are empty as they stride through them. It’s lunch time, probably; Stephen can feel the faint sensation of hunger hit him as he realizes it. Still, he has a busy schedule – he’ll eat something a bit later.

‘’I wanted to look over Mordo’s belongings with you and Wong,’’ Stephen informs Master Brown while they walk. ‘’If we can find some of his old notes or books, we might figure out a fragment of his plan. And I know you trained with him for a long while –‘’

‘’It’s worth a shot,’’ Master Brown interferes before he can start rambling, shooting him an amused glance.

‘’I do think so,’’ Stephen says. ‘’Even an inkling of his plan may be enough to sufficiently protect the Sanctum from whatever he wants to do.’’

‘’Nothing else we can do,’’ she agrees. ‘’Oh, here he is. Good afternoon, Master Wong. And Tony, of course.’’

Stephen turns to look at them – his two friends are sitting together, indeed. He didn’t plan on seeing Tony already, and his heart unwillingly skips a beat at the surprise. Tony looks back for only a second, but the easy grin that usually welcomes him is now absent, and Stephen doesn’t know what to make of that. He focuses on Wong, instead, who takes out his earphones to frown at him.

‘’I already started,’’ he says in lieu of a greeting, gesturing towards the old parchment he’s reading. ‘’Mordo was reading these when he left the Sanctum. No dangerous ideas in it so far, but there’s a wonderful recipe for pork we could show Simeon.’’

Stephen doesn’t focus on Tony’s surprised huff of laughter at that. ‘’Not exactly what the aim of this enterprise was, but I’ll take whatever advantages I can get,’’ he responds dryly. ‘’Perhaps you can give Master Brown another book he often read, if you know one. Anything to find out what he may be planning.’’

Wong rolls his eyes at him, clearly seeing through him, but he does rise from his chair, leaving his earphones on the table. Master Brown follows him, unperturbed, and it leaves Stephen alone with Tony for a moment. The man shifts in his chair, and it creaks loudly, but he still doesn’t look at him.

‘’Hey,’’ Stephen says. 

‘’Hi,’’ Tony says, and now he’s forced to look up. He smiles, and it would look kind enough, but Stephen has known him long enough now to see that he’s faking it. 

‘’How did it go with Peter Parker?’’ he asks, as if nothing’s the matter. He wonders why Tony is acting so differently; he was fine only days earlier, when they were working on the sensors. It wasn’t weird then, despite everything that has happened. 

Tony’s eyes immediately darken in a memory, and Stephen almost regrets asking. ‘’Fine,’’ the answer comes. ‘’I mean, I don’t know if he even remembers, but he has the drive, and I’ll mail Vision the specs anyway to make sure they have them. But it was good to see him.’’

Stephen nods, and sits in Wong’s abandoned chair. ‘’I know you miss him,’’ he says. ‘’We are going to fix this.’’

Tony returns to his blueprints at that. ‘’As you say,’’ he mumbles, and Stephen’s heart falls. It doesn’t sound like Tony still has much trust in the Sanctum, or maybe rather in Stephen. ‘’Look, don’t you – you were going to do a thing with Wong and Master Brown, right? Maybe you should just catch up with them.’’

It’s not merely dismissal – it’s a plea. Tony is still not looking at him, but he’s not sketching either. It has to be something more personal for him to react like that, and Stephen feels like he’s having trouble breathing, as he tries to make sense of it. ‘’I do have some time,’’ he says lightly. He’ll always have time for Tony, but that may not be the right thing to say.

Tony’s in love with Pepper, and he doesn’t want Stephen’s time. Not like that, he reminds himself. Maybe Tony’s caught on to him and his treacherous heart, and maybe that’s why he’s doesn’t want to talk to Stephen. Because that’s definitely what’s going on here.

‘’I forgot, but I have to – oil Dum-E,’’ Tony says, and stands. His chair scrapes the ground, echoing loudly. ‘’See you around, Stephen.’’

He leaves, his feet silent on the floor, and Stephen sits there all by himself, feeling surprisingly much like he’s unwanted.

He doesn’t know why Tony suddenly has taken an issue with Stephen’s presence, but he has enough self-preservation skills to ignore it. He has dozens of tasks lying around, all of them a priority. If Tony doesn’t want to talk to him, he will not force his presence on the man. Stephen huffs, a new sense of strength mingling with his regret.

He is the Sorcerer Supreme, and he is above such petty things as heart-ache.

~*~

Tony doesn’t want to leave the space inside the four walls that make up his room. He’s thinking, and when he’s thinking, he can forget about the world for hours on end. It’d be a good thing, but Dum-E continuously keeps poking at him and waving at the door, as if he wants him to leave.

‘’I was here first,’’ Tony tells the small bot after the fifth time, and rolls over on his bed to look at him. ‘’Dum-E, stop harassing me, I’m thinking. No, I’m not sulking, useless waste of parts. Don’t you have someone else to bother?’’

Of course Dum-E doesn’t, but it doesn’t stop Tony from huffing. He doesn’t want to think, anyway; he just wants to lift his curse and leave. He’d go buy a donut somewhere and then go to a bar and drink until he couldn’t stand on his own feet anymore. He wonders who’d come and get him: maybe it’d be Rhodey. He misses his friend dearly, even as he tries to supress the thought of him being with Pepper now. It’s all still a major buzz of confusing thoughts inside his head.

Dum-E jabs him again. ‘’Alright, whatever,’’ Tony mutters and rolls off his bed. He might as well go somewhere else; somewhere Stephen doesn’t come. He remembers the baffled look on the face of the Sorcerer Supreme, when Tony left with his empty excuse, and bans the thought from his mind. Stephen has better things to do than spend his time with Tony – and Tony needs to stop thinking about his friend, or he’ll never get over this stupid crush-like thing he’s getting.

Has already gotten? He wants to deny it, but he’s not sure he can.

He’s on his way to the showers when he runs into Alexander Wright.

‘’Oh, hello there,’’ the sorcerer greets him kindly. ‘’You alright, Tony?’’

Tony’s not actually in the mood, but he smiles politely anyway. ‘’I’m fine,’’ he says shortly. 

Alexander looks at him with raised eyebrows. ‘’That’s coincidental. Master Strange just said the exact same thing, when I ran into him. Had a little lovers’ spat?’’

Tony stills. ‘’That’s not funny,’’ he says.

‘’I’m sorry,’’ Alexander responds, holding up his hands in a gesture of universal innocence. ‘’Look, maybe it’s none of my business. I don’t know what happened, but I’m a perceptive man. It’s partly why I was made Master, and as an outsider, I may have a more impartial look than others. Did Strange say something to you?’’

Tony wants him to tell that it’s none of his business, indeed, but then holds his tongue. Stephen isn’t particularly close to Alexander; perhaps it wouldn’t be the worst person to confide in. ‘’It’s my own fault,’’ he says. ‘’It’s – uh, I’m an ass, I guess. I think it just may be best if I don’t – well, get close to him for a while. Just to sort everything out.’’

Alexander nods slowly. ‘’If that’s what you need,’’ he answers, and the glance in his eyes tells Tony that Alexander has guessed exactly at what Tony means. He’s not sure whether it’s a good or bad thing that someone knows about whatever is going on with him and Stephen, but it’s too late to worry about that anyway.

‘’Don’t tell him,’’ he asks anyway.

‘’I won’t,’’ Alexander promises, ‘’you’ve got my word. Just keep in mind that Strange is the Sorcerer Supreme, and there are already a lot of burdens on his shoulder, especially with everything that’s going on at the moment. Not to trouble you, of course, but it’s important to remember.’’

Just as if Tony’s not freaking out enough about having feelings, all of a sudden. He grimaces. ‘’Nothing’s going to happen,’’ he says.

Alexander shrugs. ‘’If you say so,’’ he answers, and leaves.

Tony leans against the wall as Alexander disappears from view, and wants to hit himself. A great time to fall for someone new, so suddenly and unexpectedly. Even better to fall for someone so close and yet so unavailable to him.

A great time to start falling in love – what’s the point of beating around the point? – and losing him before it’s even possible to have him in the first place.


	23. Chapter 23

Stephen and Minoru bow to each other as a sign of respect at the same time. He has come to the Hong Kong Sanctum, and he’s in the same small chamber that Minoru first greeted them in. Tea is already sitting in the cups, and he sits down before his own cup. Master Zhao is already sitting quietly, looking at him with the kindness of a fond uncle.

‘’I’m glad you asked to meet today,’’ he tells her. ‘’I actually had a question I wanted to ask you.’’

‘’Of course,’’ Minoru says, and takes her tea in hands. ‘’I’m merely sorry you didn’t bring Stark. Master Zhao is looking forward to seeing him again, but neither of us have much time for friendly visits.’’

Besides the fact that it’s not necessary to bring Tony along on this visit, Stephen doesn’t think he could even have asked him. Tony has been avoiding him, to such a degree that even other Masters commented on it. He has come to ignore the obvious evasion, hardening his heart against the worry and regret, and asked Wong to look out for their friend. 

He wonders what he did wrong. Perhaps he misjudged Tony, and pushed him beyond his limits when he allowed Wanda Maximoff to remember him, but something tells him that’s not the issue. He merely takes it as an opportunity to not think about the other man and try to smoothen out his feelings and reactions any time he sees him, though that isn’t working either so far.

Well. Maybe with some more time.

‘’He couldn’t make it, I’m afraid,’’ Stephen says smoothly. ‘’I’m not here on account of Tony, however. How often did Karl Mordo visit your Sanctum, when he was still a member of ours?’’

She tilts her head, and her eyes go intent. ‘’He visited sometimes, but I wouldn’t have called it frequent. Why do you ask?’’

‘’We suspect Mordo knew people in both the New York and the London Sanctum with doubts about the way things are right now, and we think he personally asked them to join his cause. Derrick Price doesn’t talk much, so we can’t draw a plan from him. But if he got them from our Sanctums, why didn’t any of your people leave?’’

Minoru goes silent for a second. ‘’I can’t tell you why,’’ she says eventually. ‘’However, your and Wright’s Sanctums were under quite some duress when you became Sorcerer Supreme. With Master Sol Rama and The Ancient One gone, there were many changes. I stayed here; my people knew me and trusted me, and those that didn’t had already left. I do not allow people to doubt my place, and you were in no position to ask for the same loyalty yet. Perhaps that is a reason.’’

Stephen bites his lip. ‘’Perhaps,’’ he states. It certainly makes more sense to him than any other theory that has been brought forward so far. 

‘’As fascinating as our group of rebels is, with their unknown plan against the Sanctums,’’ Minoru says, ‘’I think we have a bigger issue.’’

He leans forward. ‘’A bigger issue?’’ he repeats disbelievingly. ‘’A bigger issue than a group of renegades that places the Curse of Athazagora on someone and threatens to tear apart the Sanctums? I’m wondering at your priorities, Master Minoru.’’

She raises an eyebrow and moves around her hair, and looks at Master Zhao. They exchange a meaningful glance before she turns back to Stephen. ‘’My priorities are as they should be. Yes, a bigger issue,’’ she says. ‘’Are you – familiar with Master Zhao’s abilities, Master Strange?’’

‘’He brings you what you need, doesn’t he?’’ he asks. He’s heard of it before, certain niches in someone’s magic. Master Zhao is a clear example of the manifestation of magic in that way, but it’s not anything he has specialized in.

Minoru nods. ‘’Indeed he does,’’ she says, ‘’but that’s not the sole of his abilities. He sees things, the things we need, but they come to him in flashes. Perhaps it’s something we could call visions, though it’s not as simple as all that.’’

‘’Seeing the future,’’ Stephen states, and he can’t quite help the sceptical tone.

She sighs. ‘’Don’t do that,’’ she says, and rises. ‘’Master Zhao knows what he is talking about, and so do I. We are _very_ lucky to have him. He brings us what we need, and what we needed was this knowledge so we can prepare. Visions are not the future; but they are an indicator of what to come. Future problems, ones we need to address now. You are the Sorcerer Supreme and the Master of the New York Sanctum, and try as I might, I cannot do this alone. We need to unite. Something big is coming, Strange – something beyond what we have seen so far. It’s dangerous, and it might tear apart the world as we know it. Are you ready to listen to me?’’

Stephen stills. ‘’I believe you,’’ he says. ‘’How can we prepare for something like that? Shouldn’t you have called in Master Wright?’’

‘’Wright will know in due time,’’ Minoru says sharply. ‘’He’s busy enough, with two Sanctums, and I don’t think he’s fully healed yet, whatever he might say on the subject. The illness has changed him, and I fear it’s not for the better. No, it’s up to the two of us for now.’’

‘’He’s healed. He’s walking around, fully-functioning. How is it better not to involve him, now that he’s better?’’

Minoru looks away, thoughtful. ‘’It wasn’t illness that incapacitated Wright,’’ she says suddenly. ‘’He was cursed – have you encountered the Curse of Cyttorak before? Some of his Masters called me in to find him, when he left, but he’d been suffering under the curse for hours before I found him, and it took even more hours to release it from him. I think it shames him, to have fallen to it – he doesn’t know who did it, and the toll the Curse of Cyttorak takes on the body knows no equal. For a few minutes, an individual can fight it, but Wright suffered under it for hours and hours. He hasn’t been the same ever since, and I know it annoys him.’’

Stephen rises as well, facing her. ‘’Why was I not told?’’ he asks. ‘’If he was cursed – then who did it? The same group that cursed Tony?’’

‘’We don’t know, and it doesn’t matter now,’’ Minoru tells him sternly, crossing her arms as she regards him. ‘’If we want a third Master on the top of his game, we need to allow Wright his rest. Despite being cursed, he isn’t a weakling, and he won’t allow you to treat him like one. So you and I will find out what we need, and secure our planet as much as we can.’’

‘’Where’s this danger coming from, and what does it want?’’ Stephen asks.

‘’Outer space,’’ Minoru says, and her lips tilt in a wry smile. ‘’Didn’t you know? Like all proper threats.’’

~*~

Tony spends as little time as he can in the library. It’s become a sort of sanctuary to him, but Stephen’s there too often for it to be a safe place. So he finds new places to hang around and work on his specs; he’s working on upgrading his own suit, but that is turning out to be virtually impossible without a proper lab.

He’s avoiding the kitchen on regular times – which also leads to him being thrown out of the kitchen a lot more often by Simeon and going hungry – and Stephen’s personal working room, obviously, but also his own room and that other room that Stephen uses to watch out for dangers for the Sanctum. He just needs to be alone, but it doesn’t seem he can isolate his own feelings out of him. He’s only missing his friend and their closeness, and he ignores the funny looks the other Masters throw at him.

Lydia Irwin is sitting in the roofed garden where he decides to work. She glances at him, obviously not remembering him, even as Tony gives her a little wave. It’s a shame; Tony thinks they’d get along, if only she could remember who he was. Even in the relative comfort of the Sanctum, there’s no escaping the consequences of what’s been done to him.

‘’Are you new?’’ she asks.

Tony shrugs. ‘’Yeah,’’ he says, because he doesn’t feel like explaining. She seems to take it in stride, and goes back to whatever meditative stance she was in, as Tony continues scribbling on the pages. His notebook is almost full; he’ll need to find a new one somewhere. Ordinarily, he’d ask Stephen or Wong, but avoiding Stephen means avoiding Wong as well.

He misses them.

He’s been sitting there for quite some time already when he hears new footsteps enter. He doesn’t look up, confident that it’s someone who will forget he ever existed anyway; the Masters don’t come to the gardens that often, not unless it’s for lessons. He freezes when a very familiar Cloak pats him on the shoulder.

‘’Hi, Stephen,’’ he says, and turns around. 

Stephen stands above him, looking a bit wary to be around him. ‘’Hello.’’

‘’Right,’’ Tony says awkwardly, and stands up, patting his pants to clean them, and clenching his notebook in his hand. ‘’I was just going to –‘’

‘’I need your help,’’ Stephen interrupts him. ‘’I don’t know what you’re doing – honestly, Tony, I’m not sure I even have the time to care about any of it. Whenever you decide you’re ready to quit yanking me around, just let me know and I’ll be your friend again, but whatever I did to offend you, there’s other problems right now.’’

Tony blinks. ‘’What happened?’’ he asks.

Stephen grimaces. ‘’You’re an Avenger, aren’t you?’’

‘’Yeah,’’ Tony says, and shifts. ‘’Of course – Stephen, what do you mean?’’

‘’Then let’s make sure there’s a world left for you to avenge,’’ he says, and walks away.

~*~

‘’What exactly did she say the threat is?’’ Vision asks, floating behind them as Tony tries to adjust some of the settings. They’re in Avengers Compound, called together for an emergency meeting, but not all Avengers have come in. There’s only Steve and Bruce that don’t remember Tony, which at least minimizes the difficulty they’ll have in explaining his presence.

The only other members present are Vision and Wanda. She keeps glancing at him surreptitiously, and Tony doesn’t know what to make of it. Master Moretti stands beside her, outwardly appearing calm, though she’d left out a string of Italian curses when Stephen came to get her.

The thought makes Tony glance at Stephen, but the sorcerer isn’t looking back. ‘’Nothing she can say for certain,’’ he says, clearly annoyed and anxious, as he paces around the room. ‘’But definitely something that will be dangerous to all of us – powerful enough that we need to find a way to stop it from coming to Earth.’’

‘’I wish Thor were here,’’ Steve mutters. ‘’He could’ve been a great help for this one.’’

‘’Well, we should be able to figure something out,’’ Tony says easily, even as his fingers move across the keyboard with an unprecedented speed. ‘’I can hijack enough bases to inform us of anything moving across the sphere, but I’m not sure the range is great enough. There’s a good deal of information I can get from NASA, but I’m not sure we’ll be informed in time for us to stop any threat coming, not if it’s as dangerous as you say it is.’’

‘’But you’ll be able to tell the moment anything arrives from space?’’ Wong asks.

Tony takes a quick moment to look up at the room. Everyone’s looking at him, and despite the very real risk of something coming to obliterate the world as they know it – he’s missed this. He’s at his best when handling threats, when he’s forced to think on his feet. And he missed being part of a team, even if two members have trouble remembering who he is. Not even Bruce and Steve’s glassy looks will diminish the feeling.

‘’Look who just broke into NASA,’’ he says casually as information starts appearing on multiple screens. ‘’Poor sods, they don’t even know it.’’

‘’Took you long enough,’’ Moretti says, a hint of teasing coming from her.

Tony raises his eyebrows at her. ‘’I was busy breaking into SHIELD’s old files first,’’ he tells them. ‘’They have more information on alien threats than NASA. FRIDAY, hack whatever database you deem necessary – make sure you send all the relevant data to my laptop in the Sanctum. If there’s any sort of update on something coming from space, send it to my phone immediately. Now, what’s the plan?’’

Tony is watching Stephen’s drawn face, but it’s Steve who starts talking. ‘’We have to amass enough firepower to attack something coming from space,’’ he says reasonably enough. ‘’Maybe find a way to get into space ourselves. Spaceships? Is that a thing?’’ His expression is comically uncertain, despite the situation.

‘’Very _Star Wars_ of you,’’ Tony agrees. ‘’We can do that, if we have enough time. If we have enough people with the knowledge to make them. Who do you have?’’

Bruce stares at him. ‘’Who are you again?’’ he says.

Tony rolls his eyes and walks around the room. ‘’Right. Okay, that might be a problem – we don’t have any way to lift this curse before the clock strikes twelve, do we?’’ The room stays surprisingly silent, but he focuses on Stephen. They meet each other’s gaze for a long few seconds, before Tony sighs and turns away again. ‘’I want to help – I _can_ help. But how can I help when I’m – this?’’

‘’There’s enough people to remember you for you to work on a solution,’’ Wanda says quietly, her first contribution. ‘’At the Sanctum and at the Avengers. It could be enough.’’

‘’Or it might not be,’’ Moretti responds. ‘’Stark’s involvement could slow us down. The majority of the Avengers won’t remember who he is and what he’s doing. His involvement should be mainly of the technical kind, and brought over by us.’’

‘’Not if Wanda and I were here,’’ Vision argues.

Tony just shuffles away as the others argue, until his back finds the chilly solidness of the wall. They’re going back and forth about Tony’s involvement to attack strategies and who should be doing what, and he lets their noise wash over him. He would barely notice that Stephen comes to stand next to him, had he not been aware of everything that Stephen does when he’s in a room with him. It’s hardly anything Tony can help anymore, and he starts to think that their separation has only made his unwanted feelings grow.

‘’I can’t focus on three problems at once,’’ comes Stephen’s low voice, soft and apologetic. ‘’I know I’ve promised you help months upon months. I know we’re only edging closer, and there’s no solution in sight. I wish I could offer you answer right now and let you go home, like you’ve wanted to all along – and with everything that’s going on, I’m not sure I’ll even be able to help. Not anymore.’’

Tony is silent for a few moments, but then Stephen’s cold fingers find a way around Tony’s upper arm, and he looks up. There’s a hint of green in his arctic blue irises, and a dark speck of brown in his right eye that Tony has never noticed before. He watches it, for a moment, as he tries to find out what he’s feeling and what he wants to say. Something aches at Stephen’s words, and his only life-line is the nail of Stephen’s thumb, lightly pressing into his skin. 

He doesn’t even know what his home is, and he’s not sure it’s anything that Stephen wants to offer him.

‘’It’s alright,’’ he murmurs with a rough voice. ‘’It’s been months. I can hang on a little longer. Look, we’ll do this first – I know you’re the Sorcerer Supreme, and I know it brings duties with it. Earth is more important than me. I’m not going to argue with that.’’

‘’Even after if we do this –‘’ Stephen starts, but Tony already knows what he’s going to say.

‘’I know,’’ he interrupts, and he can’t help the pleading note in his voice. ‘’I know, alright? But if I start losing hope, Stephen, I _will_ throw myself from a bridge right now. I need to have faith, alright? Don’t take that away from me.’’

Stephen’s eyes move downward, towards where his hand still rests on Tony’s bare arm. Slowly, he draws away, and the movement feels like a soft caress before his hand is gone. Tony misses it immediately, but doesn’t say anything. ‘’I will never stop searching,’’ the sorcerer says slowly. ‘’That, I do promise you. If it’s in my power, you’ll be remembered again.’’

It’s not a promise; it’s a vow. Tony holds his gaze for a moment – but then Wong speaks up loud enough to bring both of their attentions back to the problem at hand.

‘’How will we spread ourselves out over the problems?’’ he says, crossing his arms as he glances at Stephen. ‘’We can’t fight an alien threat if we can’t protect ourselves from the one on our own doorstep.’’

Stephen sighs, and steps away, leaving Tony oddly bereft. ‘’We’ll find a way. We’ll persevere because we must, simply. Losing isn’t an option.’’

‘’That doesn’t mean it’s not a possibility,’’ Vision says calmly. ‘’Let us take care of the alien threat for now; that is what the Avengers are here for. Make sure your Sanctum is protected first, and then focus on the other threats.’’

Stephen nods tightly, but Tony can see the worry all over the tense lines of his body anyway.

~*~

‘’We don’t have time for this,’’ Wong tells Stephen.

‘’I’m well aware,’’ Stephen snaps in return. ‘’What do you want me to do, Wong? I can hardly give up the entire protection of our planet away to the Avengers – you can’t ask me to. Minoru came to us with this, she cannot do this alone, and Wright is out for now. There’s only a finite number of alliances we can have, and we need to help.’’

‘’We can’t help if Mordo kills you.’’

‘’So don’t let him,’’ he retorts simply. ‘’We’re in a state of crisis, Wong. It’s the perfect opportunity to work on getting some solutions to our problems. We work best when the stakes are highest; time to show our best efforts.’’

He’s not all as certain as that, obviously, but his friend needs him to be confident. Wong isn’t thinking calmly, and honestly, neither is Stephen. Every muscle in his body is screaming at him to get moving, to start attacking an invisible enemy that hasn’t arrived yet. ‘’We can’t afford distractions, Stephen,’’ Wong tells him.

His shoulder slump, even as he regards his friend seriously. ‘’I won’t be distracted,’’ he says. ‘’Not when it counts.’’

Wong nods slowly. ‘’So you say. But if Tony’s life is on the line, and you have one second to save him or kill whoever’s attacking us, what would you do?’’ he presses.

It’s not a situation he wants to think about. Stephen sighs. ‘’None of that is important right now. The chances that it’ll happen is –‘’

‘’There’s a reason none of us have a partner, Stephen,’’ Wong interjects. ‘’It’s hard to fit into our lives. We can’t always make the right choices.’’

Stephen shakes his head, drastically. ‘’Did you ever consider to think it’s none of your business?’’ he snaps. ‘’I’ve offered so much to even be in this position right now – don’t I deserve something? Not even the _hope_ of having it all end well? Is that the price of being Sorcerer Supreme? Because if so, I’m not sure I can stay – if I can’t have anything, if I can’t have the merest _thought_ of him, then why the hell am I here, Wong?’’

A bird chips outside in the setting of the evening, and it’s the only sound he can hear in the room. Wong looks at him with his lips tightened, and he’s never seen him this upset.

‘’You’re here because you promised to help people in whatever way they needed you to,’’ Wong says eventually. ‘’Because you’re meant for something greater, and this is it. And to be able to perform your calling the way you should, you can’t have an unreturned love dragging you down. The longer you keep hoping, Stephen, the more difficult this is going to be for you, in the end. Whatever end it may be.’’

Stephen sags down. He thinks of Tony’s dark eyes, pleading with his own, only hours earlier. _I need to have faith, alright? Don’t take that away from me_.

‘’There’s something I have to cling to, in the darkest moments,’’ Stephen starts slowly. ‘’I’m a realist. I know this may not end well – I know it probably won’t. But this is the thing, Wong – I’m not a teenage girl with an impossible crush, who’ll realize it’s a stupid infatuation in a few weeks and forget about it. I didn’t _choose_ to feel like this. I know Tony, now, and I can’t – I’m physically incapable of forgetting about him. You know that I have tried, and I’m tired of trying. If I’m doomed to be in love with Tony Stark, then that’s that. Then I’ll accept that, because there’s worse things that could have happened.’’

‘’Worse than loving someone, and being alone?’’ Wong’s voice is soft, and Stephen feels like they’ve reached an understanding, even as his friend reaches out to lay a hand on his shoulder.

‘’It’s nothing that dozens of people haven’t survived before,’’ he answers with a grim smile. ‘’It’s the hope that counts, Wong. Someone in love never loses hope. It may be a valuable weapon.’’

‘’In our line of work, it could be the weapon that kills you,’’ Wong says quietly, and walks away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... You guys really didn't think that they were busy enough already, did you? Oh well. Can't have a Marvel fic without a threat coming from space, right?
> 
> I'm surprisingly fond of next chapter, by the way.


	24. Chapter 24

It’s an odd realization for Stephen. He and his Masters are beyond anxious, trying to figure out how to protect the world from an unknown danger while keeping their own Sanctum out of enemy hands. Wright’s assistance only rubs him the wrong way; Stephen has strictly informed his Masters of Minoru’s request to keep Wright in the dark for now, despite his own misgivings about the situation. Still, he’d rather listen to Minoru than to Wright.

They’ve interrogated Derrick Price time and again, but he doesn’t talk. He’s simply stopped responding to anything he says; by his knowing smirk, he’s guessed that Stephen won’t allow any corporal punishment to be handed out. He knows that Minoru disagrees with his leniency, but it is a line he’s not willing to cross. Not for all the answers in the world; as long as he has his morals, he can do this. He won’t resort to anything beyond captivity. It may be weakness, in the eyes of both enemy and ally, but it’ll have to do.

No matter how challenging the situation is, it seems like Stephen and Tony are tentatively going back to their old friendship, before the lies and the awkward situation. Stephen has long accepted for himself that giving up on his feelings is a useless matter, and that only seems to make it easier. At least he doesn’t have to berate himself for every thought he’s having, and Tony doesn’t seem to notice it if Stephen watches him a bit too tenderly.

Tony is busy drawing out specs for space-ships; he seems like an enthusiastic little boy when he does so, and Stephen enjoys sitting beside him and giving him advice and suggestions whenever he can. He’s busy with checking the Sanctum more thoroughly, and with the sensors they have to find Mordo, he moves across the city with whichever Master is available at the time. Haman and Chen are gearing up their apprentices towards a fight, focusing on both aggressive and defensive spells to be used in combat. None of them are sure what use it will have, but it’s better than nothing.

Moretti and Lydia, who’s become her official ward in the past few weeks, create an abundance of potions that can be used in many situations. There’s a tension and apprehension brewing in the air, giving birth to a Sanctum full of nervously buzzing life. Still, they don’t find Mordo and his crew, who seems to be lying suspiciously low following their attack. Derrick Price is silent and waits; Stephen and his Masters search; and everyone is preparing for whatever may come.

It’s like the silence before the storm, but for the fact that he can feel the storm already brewing in his veins.

So when Tony barges into his bedroom at four in the morning, his eyes wild and his hair stuck-up in odd angles, only wearing underpants and a thin shirt that allows the light of the arc reactor to shine through, Stephen is afraid that the storm has come.

‘’What’s it?’’ he asks, sitting upright immediately, dream already long forgotten.

Tony holds up his phone, from which a beeping sound is steadily emitting. ‘’FRIDAY woke me up,’’ he says. ‘’Aliens – we think. At least, something came from outer space to Earth, but it’s only a small aircraft. Not exactly a huge threat, but – well, you know.’’

‘’That can’t be it,’’ Stephen says, but he does get out of bed. His shirt clings to his body, only making him realize now that he must’ve been having a nightmare. He hasn’t been sleeping well ever since Minoru told him of Zhao’s vision – danger has been on the forefront of his mind. ‘’Can it?’’

Tony huffs out a breathy laugh, clearly uncomfortable. Maybe he hasn’t been sleeping soundly, either. ‘’I don’t know, but we don’t get visits from outer space every day. FRIDAY says they landed in Missouri, of all places – all fronts have been silent on it so far, so either no one has noticed anything yet or they’re keeping things under the radar. I think it’s the former.’’

‘’Get your suit,’’ Stephen orders him, and the Cloak flies over to him as he waves his hand towards it. ‘’I’m going to get Wong – let’s find out what’s going on.’’

Tony gives him a quick nod and sprints out of the door, his footsteps echoing long after he’s left the room.

~*~

They arrive in Missouri a short twelve minutes later. Stephen is more alert than ever. Four of his Masters have come with him, only leaving Master Brown to guard the Sanctum. He has to take his chances, after all; there’s enough sorcerers and apprentices left to fight back, should anything happen back there.

Wong steadies himself by holding onto Stephen’s shoulder as they crouch behind a shed, looking furtively towards the meadow the aliens are supposed to have landed in. ‘’Why the hell would aliens come to St Charles, of all places?’’ Tony whispers, looking at the phone in his hand. There’s a blue dot on the exact space FRIDAY informed him they should be.

‘’I’m not seeing anything yet,’’ Master Chen declares in a significantly louder voice.

‘’Keep it down,’’ Stephen tells him, and motions towards the other side. ‘’There’s a house there, presumably with an owner. We should check up on them, see if all the residents are safe.’’

‘’We can’t just go there and ask if they’re alright!’’ Chen says, but it’s more of a whisper than it was before. Haman shrugs at the statement, clearly conveying his helpless agreement. Moretti just stares at the two of them.

Wong shakes his head. ‘’We do need a back-up plan,’’ he says. ‘’Who’s going to go? Who’s going to stay? Barging in isn’t an option, Stephen. The alien might be there.’’

In the darkness, there’s four pairs of eyes glinting at him; Stephen mulls over it. ‘’Alright,’’ he starts eventually. ‘’Master Chen and Master Moretti, you stay here and search for any kind of space-craft. Try not to alert any inhabitants, but if you happen on them, make sure they leave the area. Wong, Haman, Tony and I – wait. Where’s Tony?’’

He turns around, fully expecting to see his friend staring at him, but there’s a vacant spot where Tony just was. ‘’Stephen,’’ Wong murmurs in alarm, and points to the small home a few yards away. The familiar figure of Tony Stark stands by the front door, knocking politely.

‘’Is he knocking on the door?’’ Stephen hisses, and panic blooms in his chest. He tries to stand up, but Haman and Wong manage to keep him crouching, holding him by his sleeves. ‘’Has he _lost his mind_?’’

‘’Yes, he has,’’ Moretti says, shaking her head as the door opens. ‘’Wait, look at that.’’

‘’Idiot,’’ Stephen mutters. Wong forcefully holds him back, which is the only reason that he doesn’t move from where he is standing as the door opens. He pales as he gets a look at who opens the door. Tony stands still in front of what is visibly an alien, talking and gesturing as if nothing out of the ordinary is happening. ‘’That’s not a human being – look at that, it has _antennas_. He’s – he’s going inside. What is he doing?’’

‘’Great,’’ Wong rumbles. ‘’Now we have to stage a rescue mission?’’

~*~

Tony forgot how much squabbling a team does instead of getting things done. So while Master Chen is slowing down the process, he walks a bit further to see the home. There’s a light burning in the living room; only a single dim lamp, but it’s an odd thing for this early in the morning. Then suddenly, he can see two shapes moving; it seems like they’re kissing, and he squints his eyes at the shadows.

There’s people in that house, a couple, and they’re awake. Even if it’s not the residents, certainly they’re not all that dangerous. He’s not coming here to harm them, after all, and he has his suit. He glances back at the sorcerers, still hotly in a whispered debate, and moves forward. No time like the present, after all.

He knocks at the door, and waits with his heart thumping loudly in his chest.

A girl with large eyes and antennas on top of her head opens the door. ‘’Hi,’’ she says, smiling innocently at him. ‘’Who are you?’’

‘’Mantis!’’ a feminine voice interrupts before he can answer, and a green-skinned woman appears behind her, looking at him frantically. ‘’Don’t open the door to strangers!’’

‘’But he knocked,’’ the woman with the antennas, presumably Mantis, protests.

‘’Hi,’’ Tony says, waving. ‘’I’m not here to – I don’t know – harm you, or something. My name’s Tony. I just want to talk. Promise. So, any chance I can get in?’’

The green-skinned woman looks at him. She doesn’t look as innocent as the woman before him – she’s calculating and cold, and she knows what she wants and how to get it. She’s missing something that Tony has seen in other women like that, though – like she already has what she wants, and she’s desperately trying to hold onto it. She gestures with her head, and Tony steps in, the door closing behind him.

‘’Mantis, check him,’’ the woman says, and then turns her dark eyes on Tony. ‘’Just let her do what she needs to do, and we’ll let you in. Hold out your hand for her.’’

Tony rises an eyebrow, but does as she says. Mantis takes his hand, and a shudder of unexpected emotions goes through him. The antennas light up and she closes her eyes, her mouth opening lightly as she touches his skin.

‘’He means no harm,’’ Mantis says eventually, opening her eyes again. ‘’He’s curious, and a bit startled, and lonely. He’s not evil.’’

‘’What’s happening around here?’’ A man appears around the corner into the narrow hallway. He has broad shoulder and blond hair that curls at the ends, but he looks like a human. Tony wonders if he is, and what he’s doing with these aliens, if that’s true. A walking tree with a video game appears behind him, and Tony stares at it, at least, until the talking raccoon becomes visible.

‘’Mantis opened the door,’’ the woman says, crossing her arms together. ‘’His name’s Tony, and he seems to be honest. He’s Mantis-approved.’’ 

‘’Seems to be?’’ Tony sputters. ‘’You had your woman examine me, damn right I’m honest. Now, I don’t mean any harm, but I’m part of a defence initiative for Earth. So, who are you, where have you come from, and why are you here?’’

‘’I’m Peter Quill, or Star-Lord,’’ the man answers, narrowing at him as if he’s questioning his authority. ‘’This is Gamora, Mantis, and these two here are Rocket and Groot – we have another guy, Drax, checking on our ship now. We’re here to help you, in fact – something dangerous is coming, and it’ll potentially destroy the entire planet. So, you’re welcome.’’

Tony blinks. ‘’Right,’’ he says faintly. ‘’And why do you want to help? And why come to Missouri for it, of all places?’’

‘’We’re the Guardians of the Galaxy,’’ Gamora tells him. ‘’Earth is part of the galaxy. Besides, Peter’s from here. No, literally, here. This house belongs to his grandfather.’’

‘’Well, at least I don’t have to worry you murdered the residents and buried them outside,’’ Tony mutters before speaking up again. ‘’Okay, I want to tell you to tell me everything, but there’s in fact some other people outside who should hear what you have to say as well. First things first; where’s your spaceship?’’

‘’Ah, we parked it outside,’’ the raccoon says, waving with his hand as if to say it’s not of consequence. ‘’Invisible, of course. According to Quill, all humans are pussies who don’t know how to handle with spaceships and might steal it. And I ain’t gonna let any human touch my ship.’’

‘’It’s not your ship,’’ Peter Quill complains, and turns to Tony. ‘’It’s not his ship. I’m the captain.’’

Tony nods slowly, even as he’s led into the living room. It’s here the light from the dim lamp came from; it’s an antiquated lamp, dim and yellowish. The entire room seems to be rather old-fashioned, clearly made for an older man – Quill’s grandfather, presumably. ‘’Two questions, at the moment,’’ he starts. ‘’One; why do you have a talking raccoon? Two; how did a human become captain to a team of aliens?’’

‘’We have a talking raccoon because it refuses to leave,’’ Quill answers, but the fleeting look he sends towards the talking animal betrays his affection. ‘’As for the second – I was kidnapped by an alien named Yondu when I was a kid. He was supposed to bring me to my dad, who wasn’t exactly human, but then it turned out he was a bad guy and we had to kill him.’’

Tony blinks. ‘’That’s kind of a plot twist there, buddy,’’ he says. ‘’Don’t worry about it, dads suck anyway, it’s part of their job description. Didn’t miss out there.’’

Rocket crosses his arms. ‘’All of you are acting like you’re so special with your daddy issues!’’ he complains, waving his hands around. ‘’You don’t see me crying to everyone about _my_ daddy issues!’’

‘’Daddy issues?’’ Quill repeats incredulously. ‘’You don’t even have a dad!’’

‘’How is that not an issue?’’ Rocket demands.

‘’Guys,’’ Gamora interrupts. ‘’You’re upsetting Groot. Peter, come with me and show me how you got that water.’’ She sends Quill a meaningful look, and Tony takes from it that they’re going to discuss what to do about him. He doesn’t mind; he has a hunch these Guardians will do the right thing.

It may take them a while to get there, though. They seem a bit dysfunctional. It’s only Mantis, Rocket and Groot left in the living room with him. The first two stare at him; the latter seems too busy playing a game. ‘’So who are you?’’ Rocket asks. ‘’Are you one of those sissy humans we’re supposed to be helping? Can you do anything cool?’’

Tony shrugs. ‘’I make stuff blow up, mainly,’’ he says. 

Rocket’s eyes grow wide. ‘’Me too!’’ he responds, and it seems that the raccoon likes him a lot better after that. Well, Tony has never considered himself to be good with animals, but it seems to help when they’re able to talk and make things explode. 

Gamora walks back into the room, carrying two glasses of water and putting them on the wooden table before glaring at Tony. Quill walks in and does a double-take. ‘’How did that guy get here?’’ he asks, shocked.

‘’Peter, he’s been here all this time,’’ Gamora says, turning her head to look at him instead. ‘’What are you –‘’

‘’Oh, that’s my fault,’’ Tony say. His mind starts whirling and he narrows his eyes at the Guardians. ‘’Though that’s – really interesting. It’s – something I hadn’t ever considered. You were in there for what, two minutes? Three? And you remember who I am? In fact, only Quill has forgotten, right?’’

‘’Can someone just tell me what this guy is doing here?’’ Quill exclaims. ‘’Gamora?’’

‘’Explain,’’ Gamora says tersely, and the threatening look is back at once. She leans against the wooden table, putting her hands in her pockets, but there’s not a single doubt in Tony’s mind that she could leap up and strangle him in a second, if she were so inclined.

Tony feels his muscles stiffen, and bites his lower lip. ‘’Alright, let me give you the abridged version of it,’’ he says, and tells them.

~*~

‘’We can’t break in,’’ Master Chen says apprehensively. ‘’Stark got himself in quite the situation – look, there’s definitely more than one. Who knows what they’re doing to him?’’

‘’He has the Iron Man suit,’’ Moretti reminds them all. 

Wong tilts his head. ‘’That is true, but that doesn’t mean he’s not in trouble. We do not know their abilities or intentions. It was a gross miscalculation for Tony to do this – what was he thinking?’’

‘’He wasn’t,’’ Chen whispers furiously.

‘’Stop it,’’ Stephen says back, and cranes his neck. ‘’There – doesn’t that look like an alien to you?’’

Outside, there’s a broad man with intricate lines all over his body, but he can’t make out more details in the dark. Stephen tries to keep his head cool as he considers all the options. Breaking in, despite how much he wants to, isn’t viable. Judging by the forms inside the house, they’re outnumbered, and like Wong pointed out, they don’t know what the aliens can do. Besides, they may harm Tony before they have the chance to retrieve him, and his heart does a frantic little jump as he thinks about it.

The goal is to find Tony before anything can be done to him with as little risk of harming anyone else. 

The broad alien moves around in the meadow, but then starts moving back towards the home. Thoughts race through Stephen’s head. ‘’I have a plan,’’ he whispers. ‘’Trading hostages.’’

‘’Risky,’’ Wong warns him.

‘’There’s nothing else for it,’’ Stephen decides, because honestly, the ideas are finite and they’re on the clock. ‘’Just restrain him, don’t harm him. Let’s hope none of them can beat magic. Wong, we’ll take the left, everyone else, on the right.’’

And he moves.

~*~

If nothing else, Tony’s explanation has made Gamora loosen up. She doesn’t look as deadly anymore, just exasperated and worried. ‘’So there’s evil sorcerers in your world?’’ she asks, and turns to Peter. ‘’You never said anything about this.’’

‘’Honestly, that might’ve made the whole Earth-thing a lot more interesting,’’ Rocket says.

‘’I didn’t know!’’ Quill exclaims, crossing his arms in protest. ‘’How was I supposed to know?’’

‘’No, Earth got weird only a little while ago,’’ Tony tells him. ‘’But the fact that everyone else in this room remembers me – it doesn’t work on aliens, then. Only humans. Well, even if no one finds an answer to my curse, I’ll just move to Mars. Problem solved.’’

Only Mantis looks at him with big eyes. ‘’It must be lonely,’’ she says, but her voice carries across the room sharply, and everyone falls silent. ‘’To be forgotten by everyone like that.’’

Tony manages to smile at her. ‘’Could be worse,’’ he says. ‘’I mean, it sucks. But I went to the Sanctum to find the nice wizards, and they have a spell to make themselves remember me. So, that’s like – ten people who already remember me. Let me tell you, it’s a hell of a lot more than it was at first.’’

‘’Just ten people?’’ Gamora repeats, and Tony shrugs. Ten people feels like a lot to him; ten people is a number that has saved his life. Ten people that remember him – it’s not actually much, but it makes all the difference.

Even one makes a difference, and he thinks of Stephen, so earnestly promising to help him over and over again.

‘’A few of them are here, in fact,’’ he tells them. ‘’They’ll help you out – we’re going to listen to whatever you came here to tell us and try to help as best as they can. It takes some getting used to them, but they’re honestly great – what’s that noise?’’

He walks towards the window, looking out of it with his brows scrunched. The Guardians come to stand beside him. ‘’Drax?’’ Rocket says.

It’s a muscular greenish alien, his entire upper body and the better part of his face covered in stunning decorative lines, as if inked on. He’d look quite impressive and enthralling, had he not been floating in the air and yelling like a girl, waving his arms around helplessly.

Underneath him are the five sorcerers that Tony came to Missouri with, and he shakes his head at the sight. ‘’Looks like our friends found each other,’’ he says wryly. The Guardians share a glance among each other and then run outside. Tony curses and follows, determined not to let it break out into a fight.

‘’Put him down right now!’’ Gamora is shouting once he reaches them.

‘’Do we have bombs left?’’ Rocket mutters to Quill, and Tony steps in between them fiercely.

‘’No bombs,’’ he says resolutely. ‘’This is all just a misunderstanding.’’

‘’Let our friend go first, and nothing will happen to him!’’ Stephen shouts from across the field. ‘’I promise that nothing – Tony?’’

Tony stops in the exact middle of two groups, and smiles, tight-lipped. ‘’Hi,’’ he says. ‘’Care to tell me what you’re doing?’’

Stephen glances towards him, back to the flying alien – still screaming unattractively – and back to him again. ‘’Staging a rescue?’’ he offers.

Tony huffs and rolls back his eyes, feeling a wave of fondness go through him. ‘’Drop the alien,’’ he says. ‘’Masters of the New York Sanctum – I present to you the Guardians of the Galaxy. They do exactly what the name implies, and they came to Earth to help.’’

‘’They didn’t kidnap you?’’ Chen demands.

‘’No, I befriended them instead,’’ Tony says easily, and turns towards the Guardians even as Drax is slowly lowered to the ground. ‘’Come meet the sorcerers. I promise they’re not assholes, once you get to know them.’’

He turns back just in time to find himself embraced by Stephen. He feels the blood rush to his face as two solid arms are wrapped around his chest, and his face is pressed against Stephen’s shoulder. He smells of soap and the Sanctum, warm and comforting. Tony’s hands settle on the sorcerer’s back after a moment’s hesitation. As Stephen pulls away, he is glad for the cover of dark to hide his pink cheeks, though the morning is readily settling in already, and the deep blue of night is slowly turning into a vibrant red.

‘’You,’’ Stephen starts, ‘’are an idiot of the highest order.’’

‘’Me?’’ Tony says, affronted. ‘’I’m not the one who launched an unnecessary rescue. You could’ve just knocked, you know.’’

But Stephen isn’t even paying attention, just slowly shaking his head with a quiet smile playing around on his face. ‘’Idiot,’’ he repeats.

Tony shrugs. ‘’Well, with you as back-up, I can afford to be.’’

The rest of the meeting goes a lot smoother, fortunately, but Tony is hardly paying attention to the others anymore as he just reminisces on the feeling of Stephen’s body pressed against his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm aware it's not Monday, but I can't update tomorrow so I thought I'd let you have this chapter a day early. Hmm, the Guardians. Bet you weren't expecting them to show up!


	25. Chapter 25

The Guardians sit in the dining hall of the New York Sanctum. All of them seem slightly uncomfortable, save for Drax, who’s gorging on the food that’s sitting in front of him. It’s an early breakfast, but the urgency of their mission doesn’t allow them to wait quietly to bring their news.

It’s a large gathering, all in all; the Guardians, and the Masters from the New York Sanctum, together with Master Minoru and Master Zhao, and from the Avengers Captain Rogers, Vision, and Wanda Maximoff. Tony’s sitting on Stephen’s left, almost a statue as he stares so intently at the Guardians.

‘’It started when we passed Aragon-7,’’ Gamora starts, sharing a look with Peter before she turns to the audience. ‘’Or well, what was left of it. It’s always been a dry planet, but they were best known for their remunerative power stations. We wanted to make a quick stop when we realized everything was shut down. The people still lived, but they were weak and fragile, and they had a hard time fending for themselves. We talked to one of the inhabitants, and she told us about a terrible creature that’d come to eat their energy. A being named Galactus.’’

‘’So what is he?’’ Stephen asks. ‘’Is he coming here?’’

‘’He’s headed this way, at least,’’ Quill says. ‘’It’ll take him some time to arrive, and he may be distracted by other stuff. He just follows a trail – energy is like breadcrumbs, to him. There must be enough energy on Earth to attract him here, which is bad news to all of us. He’ll eat it, all of it; not just from the power stations, but from the people, as well. It’s going to mean a total collapse of society.’’

Gamora nods. ‘’He needs it to survive. I knew Galactus only as a myth; I never believed in him, until I saw the destruction he caused with my own eyes. They call him the Devourer of Worlds. He is the remnant of one of the oldest races in the galaxies, extinct but for him, and now he has to consume the energy of entire worlds to satiate his hunger. He’s immensely powerful and almost unstoppable.’’

‘’What _will_ stop him?’’ Rogers asks, leaning forward with determination in his eyes.

‘’A lot of bombs, presumably,’’ Rocket says. ‘’Firepower ought to do it. But only lots of it.’’

Gamora elaborates. ‘’He can be harmed and stopped, though it’ll be difficult. There’s a core, a heart, and as long as we manage to find that, he can be killed. He didn’t start out as a being like this, so despite the armour and strength, there’s something in him that’s just as fragile as any other being.’’

‘’Great,’’ Tony says, drumming on the table with his fingers. ‘’So, basically, dump our entire arsenal on it. That should be manageable.’’

‘’Without harming others in the meantime,’’ Stephen warns him. ‘’We’ll have to amass a lot of weapons – spaceships, space guns. Try to keep him away and attack him as far away as we can get him from Earth. We’ll have to work together, all of us, to stop him.’’

Only solemn faces greet his, and he feels lighter for it. If they all work together, these several groups full of extraordinary individuals, he’s certain they must have a good chance. 

Besides, he’s grown to know the strength of hope. It may very well be the thing to get them through, in the end.

~*~

Tony doesn’t know why the raccoon and the teenage tree decided to follow him, of all people, but he doesn’t mind the company, so he doesn’t ask. The threat of a world-eating being has instilled an anxiety in him that he hasn’t felt in a long while, now, and that’s why he retreated to the Avengers Compound with Wanda and Vision, with the help of Master Zhao. Master Zhao is still around, smiling kindly at Tony. It brings him back to the little time he spent in the Hong Kong Sanctum, as the sorcerer hums his old lullaby. The two Avengers are gone now, but Rocket and Groot wanted to come with him and see him work. 

It seems the raccoon has an interest in mechanics; maybe that’s why. At least, from his pointed comments on Tony’s work, he has sufficient knowledge on the subject. His glassy eyes, staring at Tony’s suit, also give away some of his fascination. Tony grins at the sight; at least he can still impress some people.

‘’I’m going to upgrade the features meant for space travel,’’ he says, and opens up a new project. Working in his lab is like taking a breath of fresh air; he’s missed this, and being back brings back feelings and memories he wanted to forget, earlier on. On the other hand, he’s also keenly aware of the things he doesn’t have, right now.

Such as Wong’s sarcastic remarks on his questions and observations, but the way he always checked on him. Master Brown showing him a certain spell, even if he could never hope to perform it. Watching Haman’s lessons from a distance. Even the people in the Sanctum who don’t remember him, like Lydia and Simeon, add something to the Sanctum despite not knowing him. It’s become a home, in the months he’s spent there. 

Mostly he thinks of Stephen’s hand on his arm, calming him down. He thinks of the faded scars on Stephen’s hands, the sign of his strength and endurance, and of the quiet explanations he’d give. Listening to Queen together while building a sensor, all those hours in the library.

Rocket’s voice snaps him back to the present. ‘’Isn’t it capable of that, already?’’ the raccoon asks him cynically, looking at the specs. He points at the flight stabilizers. ‘’Those should get you there, and I don’t see any problem with the framework itself either. Nano-technology, eh? Dangerous, but should get the job done, theoretically. Though I’ve never seen anything like this.’’

‘’It’s fine for space,’’ Tony says. ‘’But the nano-technology presents some danger, especially in attacks. If we’re actually going to fight in outer space, I need a stronger mask, to make sure I don’t suffocate outside – I don’t want it to break with a single hit. It’ll do, like it is now, but it needs improvement.’’

Groot continues playing his game, but Rocket seems captivated. ‘’Can’t you ask that sorcerer boyfriend of yours? Seems like it could make a good mix.’’

Tony frowns. ‘’He’s not - don’t call him that,’’ he says. ‘’Besides, this suit’s mine. I need to understand it, I need to be able to fix it, otherwise I can’t control it. No magic.’’

‘’Touchy subject, huh?’’ Rocket grins, leaning forward. He reminds Tony of a teenage girl wanting to gossip, and he rolls his eyes. ‘’You’re mooning over him.’’

‘’Firstly, it’s none of your business, and second, oh wait, it’s none of your business. Butt out, or get out of the lab. Your choice, bunny.’’ Tony moves towards another desk, opening a hologram of his suit and highlighting a few parts, trying to ignore the current conversation. Zhao hands him an old file, lying around somewhere on the desk. He browses through it, and it might be helpful. ‘’Thanks, Zhao.’’

‘’Oh, definitely a touchy subject,’’ the raccoon repeats gleefully. ‘’Look here, Stark, you saw Quill and Gamora out there, right? Happy couple, holding hands, all that stuff? I take responsibility for that. I pushed them towards that. You don’t want to know how long it took those two to start dancing together. I recognize this situation.’’

Tony shakes his head, taking a step back. ‘’I don’t know what you think, but I’m not trying to – dance, really? – whatever with Stephen. He’s not – he doesn’t want that.’’

‘’Now we’re getting to the juicy stuff. Because you know what? He really does.’’

‘’Look, it’s fine that you’re here and that’s all cool,’’ Tony starts, ‘’but if you don’t drop this, I’ll take that laser over there and actually shoot you with it.’’

Rocket rolls his eyes, but he backs off. ‘’Fine,’’ he can hear him mutter. ‘’If you want to ignore the obvious, who am I to stop you? Idiotic humans…’’

He ignores it, and continues working instead, Zhao steadily humming beside him.

~*~

Stephen finds Minoru in the outside gardens. It’s December, and it’s cold out, so she’s all by herself. She isn’t meditating or sitting; she merely stands there, looking at the bleak weather and the icy stones.

She turns her head slightly towards him when he joins her there, but doesn’t acknowledge him otherwise. Stephen stands still for a second, trying to find the words.

Minoru starts talking first. ‘’I like the gardens in wintertime,’’ she says, her voice soft and low. It’s like she has become another person from the no-nonsense Master that Stephen is more familiar with. ‘’To look at everything that may seem dead and empty, now, but that will be blooming once again in a few more months. No uncertainty in the future of the flowers and the trees; just a knowledge that one day, they will be beautiful and living once again, and worthy of everyone’s eyes with their unequalled grace. And in the meantime, I rest mine on them and let them give me solace, while everyone else disregards the beauty of those things that sleep.’’

Stephen gives a single nod, and steps beside her, looking at the tree before her. It will be fully blooming again in spring, with beautiful pink blossoms. He knows what she means to say, but there is no response to her fear.

‘’We have to tell Wright,’’ he says eventually.

‘’He is not the same man he once was. Not the same Master.’’

Stephen turns towards her. She still doesn’t look at him, but focuses on the sleeping garden before her, brown and dry. She runs one of her fingers along a branch.

‘’Perhaps,’’ he acknowledges. ‘’But we need him nonetheless. Whether you want to tell him or not – we cannot keep our own in the dark. No matter how we feel. If we want to get past the winter and see the garden bloom once again, we’ll have to fight this battle together. We cannot defeat a danger if we are not united, three Sanctums standing as one.’’

She remains silent, for a few moments. It’s as if time has been arrested, as the two of them watch the quiet rustling branches, devoid of leaves.

‘’You are right,’’ Minoru says. ‘’It was my choice that kept you silent, so I shall tell him and take my responsibility. Thank you, Master Strange.’’

‘’What for?’’ he asks. 

She smiles up to him. Just like everything she does, it’s only a small and soft gesture, and then she shakes her head. ‘’For being our Sorcerer Supreme,’’ she says. 

With that, she leaves him standing in the garden by himself, and he quietly laughs.

~*~

It’s Zhao that points out the time to Tony. He literally points at the clock as Tony is in the middle of droning about math problems to himself, under his breath. He’s only aware he was doing that after he stops, anyway.

Rocket and Groot are playing a multi-player shooting game on a hologram. Probably FRIDAY has made it possible; Tony’s head hurts trying to think of other explanations, so he doesn’t. He turns towards what he was doing and then back to Zhao, who still looks at him expectantly.

‘’It’s getting kind of late, right?’’ he says sheepishly, but his hands are still itching to continue. He was just in a flow. A whoop from Rocket makes him turn – some of the desks have magically fallen over, and some of the parts and papers that rested on them now lie on the floor.

Zhao makes a harsh sound, and then shrugs.

‘’You’re right,’’ Tony concedes. ‘’We should get some dinner at the Sanctum before those two blow up the lab accidentally – or maybe even on purpose.’’

Besides, he hasn’t managed to talk to Stephen after the Guardians told them of the coming threat. Both of them were swept up afterwards by their own jobs, and Tony naturally gravitated towards the Guardians and the Avengers, while Stephen had to make arrangements for all of the Sanctums and the dozens of wizards under his command.

He always marvels at Zhao understanding him despite the language barrier. He simply throws a portal over the two Guardians, and Tony grins at their shrieks as they disappear. Next, the orange sparks appear in front of them.

‘’They’re not going to be nice to you for a while,’’ Tony comments. Zhao doesn’t same to care much, and the glint in his eyes only conveys his humour. He steps through the next portal; from one moment to the other, they’re back in the New York Sanctum. He freezes as he walks right in Stephen’s private work room. Stephen is there, but also Minoru and Alexander Wright, seemingly in the middle of a heated conversation.

Three heads turn to him and Zhao, as they arrive. ‘’Knock-knock,’’ Tony says, by way of apology. ‘’Are we interrupting?’’

‘’Tony,’’ Stephen says, and something fond tingles in Tony. ‘’Do you have any of those sensors left? The original ones, that we used to sense Price’s magic? Or do you know where any of those are left?’’

He blinks. ‘’Uh – no, I don’t think so. They’re kind of superfluous anyway, right?’’

Stephen starts wringing his hands together and Minoru grimaces. ‘’Derrick Price escaped,’’ she says. ‘’We only found out ten minutes ago, but we think he’s long gone, and that he has taken the sensors with him.’’

‘’Wait, what?’’ Tony demands. ‘’All of them? The ones with Mordo’s signature as well?’’

‘’No, only his own, fortunately – the sensors for Price were left in the library,’’ Stephen says. ‘’We still have a chance at capturing Mordo, his sensors are here.’’

‘’We would, had we not had any priorities,’’ Alexander states, and he glares at the other two Masters. Tony knows that Minoru didn’t want to tell him; he doesn’t exactly know the reasoning behind it, and he hadn’t had the time to ask earlier. It appears they’ve told him of Galactus now, though, and that’s a relief. He likes Alexander and his amusing manner. 

It's all their problems stacking up that bothers Tony, however. If the only issues were Mordo and his curse before – well, Tony wasn’t happy about that, but he could deal with it. Now there is a threat to his home when he’s barely able to defend it, without his teammates remembering. And Mordo and his group is still on the loose, without anyone having an idea what they’re up to or what they’re planning, and Price – the only link they had, the only chance at figuring out how to undo Tony’s curse – has disappeared. It’s just too much.

‘’Right,’’ Tony breathes, and glances at the worried look at Stephen’s face. He doesn’t know about the Sorcerer Supreme, but he himself is about five seconds away from an anxiety attack. He balls his own fists, feeling the nails dig into his palms, closes his eyes and counts to five in his head before nodding.

‘’Tony?’’ A calm hand settles on his shoulder, and his eyes open again to meet Stephen’s. ‘’It’s going to be fine.’’

Zhao says something, and Stephen frowns. ‘’What did he say?’’ Tony asks.

‘’Something about mysterious cactuses.’’

Minoru shakes her head. ‘’He said that you haven’t eaten all day,’’ she corrects, and glares at Stephen. ‘’Honestly, Master Strange? Cactuses?’’

Stephen shrugs helplessly. Alexander takes a step forward. ‘’There isn’t much we can do about Price anymore,’’ he states. ‘’He’s clearly not in the Sanctum, so let the matter rest for now. Go get yourself dinner – I want to talk with Master Minoru for a while longer.’’

There’s an icy silence between the two Masters, and Stephen drops his hand from Tony’s shoulder. His hand hangs beside his body, and Tony itches to take it and to feel the silvery scars against his own, and to entwine their fingers and maybe allow Stephen to calm him down.

Minoru nods at them, and Tony can see Stephen hesitate. He takes the sorcerer by his wrist, instead; a much safer option than his hand, and he gets to feel the steadiness of Stephen’s pulse under his own fingers. He drags him out of the room, and they walk past the hallway together. Zhao has evidently decided to stay, because there’s no sign of him anymore.

‘’I’m not actually hungry,’’ Tony confesses in the middle of the empty hallway. They’re only a few steps away from the dining room; he can hear the rumbling of plates and cutlery from inside. He lets go of Stephen’s wrist, and puts his hand in his pocket so he won’t miss its absence as much.

Stephen eyes him strangely for a few moments. ‘’You do need some food – we have to keep up our strength.’’

‘’Right,’’ Tony says, and eyes the door. ‘’But I’m – well.’’

‘’I’ll be right back,’’ Stephen says, and he disappears into the dining hall with a quick stride. Tony doesn’t know what he’s going to do, but he waits anyway, by himself. The loneliness and worry press on his chest, and he wants to go back to his suit. He left it in the Avengers Compound, as FRIDAY was still running tests and simulations when he’d left, but he fears, suddenly. 

What if the Guardians were wrong? What if Galactus is here already, and all their planning has been in vain? What if he’s never going to see his friends again? What if he dies without them remembering him?

He feels himself shaking, and he hardly even notices it when Stephen returns. ‘’I can’t –‘’ he pleads, and he doesn’t know what he wants to ask, but Stephen just looks at him and puts down the two plates he’s carrying at once.

‘’Here, come,’’ he says quietly, and creates a portal. Tony follows him, blindly, and finds himself sitting on his own small bed with three short steps. Stephen seats him there, goes through the portal again, and comes back with the two steaming plates with fried omelettes and some vegetables. He puts them on the desk for now and settles in next to Tony.

‘’You’re safe, Tony,’’ he murmurs, and Tony hardly even remembers that it’s Stephen beside him anymore, just that the voice he hears equals to comfort and warmth and affection. ‘’You’re safe here, nothing’s going to happen to you. Just breathe for me, Tony, calm and easy. Just one breath after the other, that’s it. You’re doing great.’’

Tony is trying to gasp for breath, and it’s slowly becoming easier, but he’s still quivering relentlessly. Stephen is sitting next to him, and he grasps at the sorcerer’s shirt. ‘’I need –‘’ he starts, but he can’t finish as his gasps of breath fail to give him the oxygen he needs. ‘’Stephen –‘’

Stephen embraces him, and Tony falls into his arms. It’s different from when they found the Guardians; it had been Stephen who was frantic, then, and Tony who hadn’t known how to respond. Now, however, Tony finds himself clinging without abandon, and Stephen’s arms tighten around him. In the past, he’d found hugs like these to be suffocating; right now, he needs to know there are people left who care for him. Someone who remembers.

His breaths slowly calm down as Stephen keeps murmuring nonsense in his ear, and he feels himself slackening. Still, Stephen does not let go of him, and Tony closes his eyes as his face presses against the sorcerer’s collarbone. 

‘’You alright?’’ Stephen says, and pulls away to look at Tony’s face. 

He feels tired and desperate, and despite breaking their hug, Stephen is still holding him by his shoulders. In any case, he’s far too tired to lie. ‘’No,’’ he answers.

Stephen doesn’t ask for a clarification; he just nods slowly, as if Tony’s explained the meaning of the universe him and he was too stupid to see it before.

‘’Alright,’’ he then states. ‘’So. Anxiety attacks? Is this the first, or –‘’

‘’I wish,’’ Tony mutters, and then freezes at Stephen’s expression. It’s a combination of exceptionally transparent hurt, guilt and afflicted. ‘’Oh, I didn’t mean – I didn’t hide them from you. I’ve had them for years, and I went to therapy for it, and I did all these things you’re supposed to do. I haven’t had them in – well, since I first got cursed, I think. That’s months ago.’’

Stephen’s expression clears a bit. ‘’Do you want to talk about it?’’ he asks, painfully uncertain. Tony just wants to get back into his arms and not leave for a good long while, but that’s probably not the right thing to say. 

He takes a deep breath, and his lungs hurt. ‘’I promise you, I’m fine,’’ he starts. ‘’It’s just the whole situation. It feels like we’re getting only more trouble and nothing gets solved. The curse on itself was a big enough issue, but then we had to find a way to deal with saving your Sanctum from the same guys. And that’s fine, that’s all understandable, but now we also lost one of the guys who did this, somehow? And on top of all of that, a huge world-eating monster is coming for us. No one remembers me, Stephen. Some days, it’s hard to remember that, you know? Because there’s all these people here now that remember me, and I’m grateful, but –‘’

‘’They’re not the right people?’’ Stephen says.

Tony turns to him, and Stephen isn’t as much of an actor as he himself is. Underneath the blankness, there’s a whole slate of insecurity and hurt. Tony wants to kiss it away, and that aches as much.

‘’They’re the right people,’’ he answers, and the words roll out his mouth. ‘’But I had more than this. How can I help save Earth if no one remembers me? How can I join the Avengers if they don’t know who I am? I’m not part of anything, Stephen, I only have fragments of different teams. I haven’t seen the people I left behind for ages. The ones I have seen have given me minutes. I’m tired of everything, physically, emotionally – I care about people, and none of them remember me. I love someone I can’t have.’’

‘’Pepper will remember you,’’ Stephen says, and of course he doesn’t understand. Tony can’t help but feel the stab of disappointment, even if he hadn’t expected anything else. ‘’We’ll still search for Mordo, Tony. It’s a lot – I’m worried, too. But we have a lot of allies; we have a plan; and we have the greatest minds on Earth on our side, including yours. We will beat Galactus, we will break your curse, and you’ll get to go home.’’

Tony sighs. ‘’I know,’’ he says. ‘’Thanks for helping, anyway. You know.’’

He doesn’t think he imagines the brushing of Stephen’s fingers over his arm, but it’s such a fleeting touch that he can’t tell if it was intentional or not. Stephen rises from the bed and takes one of the plates, handing it over to Tony. It’s not steaming hot anymore, but it’s still warm, and he only realizes at that moment how much his hunger is gnawing at him.

It’s a sad smile that Stephen sends him. ‘’I do know,’’ the sorcerer says.

Tony honestly doubts so, but he still answers with a melancholic grin of his own and takes the first bite.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some angst to balance out the lack of it in last chapter, I think. 
> 
> It's probably far too early to mention this, and I won't get a chance to post it soon, but I'm working on another longer ironstrange fic (my current estimate is that it'll be over 200k). I'm just really excited about it! I'll have to write a few chapters in advance before I start posting and I have no idea how much time I will have this summer, but I hope to get to post the first chapter somewhere around August/September, trying to be being realistic about it. Which is good timing I think, because I calculated that Citizen Erased's final chapter will be posted somewhere in August as well! Anyway, hopefully you'll all keep enjoying this one and maybe I will see some of you again in my future ironstrange projects, because I'm really looking forward to writing a lot more for these boys! :)


	26. Chapter 26

Stephen finds his way to Avengers Compound by himself early on a Thursday morning. He rubs his eyes in weariness even as he closes the portal behind him, and tries not to think of the busy schedule he has ahead of him.

He hasn’t seen as much of Wong or Tony as he would’ve liked. His contact with everyone has been scarce, because they simply don’t have time to do things in pairs when they can be done alone. Efficiency is the most important factor in their planning, and it turns out that Stephen has a lot of work he can do by himself, when it comes down to it. He doesn’t necessarily feel that his work is better for it, but perhaps that is just the exhaustion speaking.

‘’Good morning,’’ he greets Captain Rogers and Miss Maximoff, already waiting for him. James Rhodes is sitting there as well, saluting pleasantly at him.

‘’Thank you for coming,’’ Rogers says, a common greeting between them, and hands him a cup of coffee. His blond hair is messier and longer than normal, and there’s some unshaven bristle on his cheeks. All of them are drained and stressed, and it’s visible in the Avengers as well.

‘’Of course,’’ he says, and takes the coffee. Normally he doesn’t drink much of it, but he’ll make an exception. ‘’How is the weapon manufacturing coming along?’’

‘’Stark Industries is doing their best,’’ Rhodes speaks up, sipping from his own cup of coffee. The cup is considerably larger than Stephen’s, and there’s an American flag on it that is partly covered by his hands. ‘’Churning out weapons isn’t their specialty anymore, though, not since Pepper put a stop to that, all those years ago.’’

Rhodes doesn’t remember. By all rights, it’s impossible for him to get the facts right. His mind has warped them into something unrecognizable – and yet, Stephen feels annoyed by it. ‘’Tony did that,’’ he says.

The colonel blinks. ‘’Who?’’ he asks.

‘’Never mind,’’ Stephen says. ‘’As long as we have enough to hit him with, it’ll be fine. It needs to be powerful enough to get into space, but not powerful enough that there will be damage to the planet.’’

Rogers grimaces. ‘’The problem with that is that we don’t know how far we’ll be able to go into space. It’s hard to calculate, and if the weapons won’t harm Galactus enough, we have a serious problem. On the other hand, if they have an impact on Earth –‘’

‘’I’ll ask if someone can give your scientists a safe number,’’ he states, and thinks of adding to Tony’s workload. Tony is equally busy; he’s been churning out weapons as if he’s a factory himself, and he’s spent a lot of time with the Guardians lately. 

It is good for him to have a new group of people that remembers him, and their knowledge of weaponry is different from Earth’s – Stephen has seen him build a lot of new prototypes with a combination of alien technology and his own. There’s a small arsenal of weapons that they want to attach to the new spaceships, which also falls under Tony’s division. A bunch of engineers have been hired to build them in the hangar of the Compound, but Tony is the one who has delivered all the blueprints, and he goes to see them quite often.

Stephen turns his head as the door opens. A woman he only knows from the papers enters; Pepper Potts, in an immaculate navy-blue dress. She walks in on high heels, carrying some papers and putting them on the table, and quickly kissing Rhodes on the cheek.

Stephen watches her, emotions in a turmoil. He knows Tony loves her; he said so himself, after the anxiety attack that worried Stephen so much. And here she is, not even remembering the man who was worthy of her affections for years, kissing his best friend instead.

He envies her for the love that Tony still bears for her, even as he pities her enforced oblivion.

‘’Hi there,’’ she says, smiling at him with pearl-white teeth, and she holds out her hand. ‘’I’m Pepper Potts, CEO of Stark Industries. It’s nice to finally meet you.’’

Stephen takes her hand. ‘’Likewise,’’ he says.

‘’I’m sorry to leave already, but I have a company that unfortunately doesn’t run herself,’’ Pepper adds, smiling wryly. ‘’James, are you ready?’’

Rhodey holds up a single finger in the air as he gulps down the last of his coffee. ‘’Now I am,’’ he answers, rising. ‘’See you later, guys. We are going to kick ass elsewhere.’’

Pepper laughs at that, and takes his hand as they leave together. Rogers turns to Stephen again. ‘’I will talk to Bruce and make sure he talks to your science guys,’’ he says. ‘’If that’s all –‘’

‘’For my part, yes,’’ he says easily. He’s here mainly because Wanda had more questions on controlling her magic; Stephen could’ve easily sent another Master, but he feels like he should be the one to teach her. Her magic isn’t ordinary, and neither is her way of controlling it; he thinks he understands it better than Haman, who would’ve thrown his usual lines at her.

Rogers leaves them to it, and Wanda stands before him with a grateful smile. ‘’I know how busy you all are,’’ she says, ‘’so it means a lot to me that you came to help. I had an accident, yesterday, and I’m – well.’’

‘’It’s fine,’’ he assures her, and positions himself in front of her. ‘’Your control is vastly improving. Now, what caused the accident?’’

She looks away and sighs. ‘’I was practicing more powerful spells,’’ she says. ‘’I want to help, now Galactus is coming. I know that my spells can be very effective; they’ve turned the tide before. But I lost control, and it slipped away from me. I want to help, Master Strange, but I mostly want there not to be a danger at all.’’

‘’Well, we won’t be able to stop him from coming,’’ Stephen tells her. ‘’Here – hold up your hands like that, and feel. Yes, great. Okay – I know you’ll be able to help, Wanda. We’re all helping out in our own way, and you’re not a liability. As long as you keep your powers into check, there is nothing to be afraid of. Stop treating your magic as something that you have, and start seeing it as something that has always been a part of you.’’

She closes her eyes, and Stephen watches her for a while. Red energy comes from her hands as she holds them out the way he instructed her to. Her skin starts to shine faintly with the same colour, and he slowly takes her hands and lets them rest down her side. He can see Wanda itching to grab back to it.

‘’Remember,’’ he warns her.

‘’Yes, my hands aren’t the source,’’ she replies in exasperation, but the glow starts to spread more evenly.

‘’Try to see how much you have of that.’’

She tries, and the sparks start to sizzle. As she opens her eyes, her irises are red. Stephen grins. ‘’What now?’’ she asks him, out of breath.

‘’Now do the reverse,’’ he tells her. ‘’Don’t let the energy go all at once, but bring it back inside of you. Come, I’ll show you.’’

She frowns, taking a deep breath. Stephen takes her hands, and presses with his own magic. It’s not easy for her, to control it; the magic always wants a way out of her, and she hasn’t found it the same way that he found his. But the core of it is the same, as it always is, and Stephen has learnt enough to help her calm the storm that she has created inside herself.

He lets go of her once she’s back to her ordinary self, and she looks at her own fingertips. ‘’I didn’t know that was possible,’’ she remarks. 

‘’It has to go somewhere. But it doesn’t always have to be outward. If you feel like you’re going to lose control, try to take the edge off by pushing it back – once your capacity to control your outgoing magic grows, you’ll feel less of a need for it.’’

Wanda nods and pushes her hair back over her shoulder. ‘’I will try that,’’ she says, and then pauses for a moment. Stephen waits for her to speak. ‘’I wanted to know – how is Tony doing?’’

Her tone is awkward, and for a moment, he thinks about what Tony told him. He hasn’t talked to Wanda about Tony a lot, and he wouldn’t have expected her to ask. ‘’Busy,’’ he answers. ‘’But he’s managing. Unfortunately, we don’t have much time to search for a solution to his curse.’’

‘’It’s very kind of you to have taken him in,’’ she says. ‘’I know he thinks that I hate him. I did, years ago, when I thought I knew what hate felt like, but I’m not the same person that I once was. I have talked about him with Vision, and I realized – I lost my family, too, when I was a child. And then I found a new one in the Avengers, as he found one in your Sanctum, but I know that it doesn’t make everything better. And I would like to have peace with him, even if we’ll never be able to be friends.’’

Stephen watches her as she says this. She is sincere, he can tell as much. ‘’I’m sure he’ll be grateful for that,’’ he answers. He doesn’t think Tony dislikes Wanda, necessarily; it’s merely that too much has happened between them to have them ever fully trust the other. 

She nods again. ‘’You should tell him how you feel,’’ she says then, a bit of mischief entering her eyes.

Stephen raises his eyebrows, even as he tries to keep himself from wriggling under her new scrutiny. ‘’What?’’

‘’Oh, come on. If looks could kill, Miss Potts would’ve been a pile of ash,’’ she grins. ‘’Besides, I saw you when you helped me remember Tony. The only reason no one else has told you this is because they don’t remember who Tony is.’’

Stephen turns away. ‘’First Wong, now you,’’ he says. ‘’Shoo, woman. Don’t you think I have other things to do than listen to your insane ramblings? I’m going to see how the spaceships are coming along.’’

If walking away so speedily gives something away – well, judging by the sound of her laughing, she’d already guessed at it anyway.

~*~

He doesn’t expect to find Tony at the hangars. He almost wonders if it’s possible to leave, but then the inventor catches sight of him and waves, so Stephen walks over and ignores the streaks of dirt on Tony’s face. His hair is a fluffy mess, and the large white t-shirt is covered in specks of oil and grime. The soft blue shine of the arc reactor is visible underneath. Tony’s still on top of one of the frames of one of the half dozen ships there are, but he slides off easily.

Stephen wants to ignore the strip of tan skin he sees as Tony makes his way down, but a man can only control himself so much.

His eyes fly back to Tony’s when he stands before him, grinning and wringing his hands clean. ‘’Hey, great timing. What do I owe the visit to?’’ he says cheerfully.

‘’I didn’t actually know you’d be here,’’ Stephen admits. ‘’Weren’t you busy with the weapons? I thought you were delegating.’’

Tony shrugs, and runs a hand through his hair as he looks back at the half-finished ship. Stephen doesn’t tell him he only makes the mess worse. ‘’There was some trouble with this one,’’ Tony says, and lightly taps the cold metal. ‘’Mechanics couldn’t figure it out, so Vision asked me to look at it for a while. He sent them all away so I could look at it and tell him what’s wrong with it, so they could work on it.’’

Tony’s still smiling, but Stephen can see the toll it takes on him. His eyes are tired and puffy, and there are lines on his face he hasn’t seen before. ‘’Did you manage to figure it out?’’

‘’Yup,’’ Tony says. ‘’Fixed it for them, too, it wasn’t a big problem, and it saves me from explaining what they did wrong. I’m actually supposed to meet with the Guardians in an hour – care to give me a ride back to the Sanctum? Or do you have something to do here?’’

‘’I’m all finished, but don’t you need to tell Vision you’re done here?’’ he asks. Perhaps it’s best not to tell Tony about the details of his visit; to have him know Rhodes and Pepper Potts were in the same building as him without knowing about him. The curse is weighing on him more than before, and Stephen’s not blind to Tony’s struggle; they can’t focus on his problem now, but it effectively interferes with Tony’s ability to help out. It’s the worst-case scenario for Tony, but Stephen can’t do anything to help. There’s no sign of Mordo and his group of people, like they’ve gone up in smoke.

He’s not certain to be glad about it or to be suspicious. 

Tony gestures to a camera, blinking in the corner of the hangars. ‘’He already knows,’’ he says cheerfully, and salutes at it. ‘’I need some food and a shower before I do anything else.’’

‘’Well, I can join you for one of those,’’ Stephen says without thinking. He knows which one he’d prefer, and tries not to twitch at the thought.

A huff of laughter comes from Tony. ‘’You’ll need to buy me dinner first, Strange,’’ he says. ‘’Or maybe breakfast, in this case.’’

‘’It’s my Sanctum,’’ he points out. ‘’Technically, I’ve bought you a lot of breakfasts and dinners already.’’

‘’Well then,’’ Tony turns to him, smiling impishly. He takes a step closer to Stephen, and he has to look down to maintain proper eye contact. He’s not sure if he imagines the slight flush to Tony’s face, but he doesn’t want to be the first one to back down. ‘’Maybe I’ll repay you for them, one day.’’

Stephen doesn’t need to be repaid, but his entire body starts to itch to take Tony and kiss his chapped lips until the man stops driving him mad. He’s going to end up crazy because of this, and Wong’s going to laugh at his misfortune in life, and he’ll never hear the end of it.

Tony takes a step back, and the moment is broken. Stephen stops the whine that wants to cross his lips, and straightens himself. _I love someone I can’t have_ – it’s just play, all of it. Tony is in love with Pepper, he’s been in love with her for years – didn’t he say that he was going to propose to her? Stephen thinks he’s said that, and he won’t come in between, not even because of some pretend-flirting. 

It’s damn hard to convince himself of that, however, even as he creates the portal and returns to the Sanctum with Tony.

~*~

Tony tries to turn off his mind, but it’s harder than he thinks. Giving up the control of his thoughts means that they’ll circle back to that moment he started openly flirting with Stephen. In a way, he didn’t even do it on purpose; he’s always toed the fine line of friendship and flirting with any of his friends, and Rhodey is testament to that. His tendency to flirt with any breathing person lessened in the period he dated Pepper, however, and he’d saved all his charming skills for her. 

But now he’s crossed a line which he fully well knew existed. He knew exactly what the extent of his relationship with Stephen was, and now he’s gone and shown some of his actual feelings. He can’t even imagine what Stephen must’ve thought; he’d frozen up, and that’s mainly the reason Tony’s beating himself up about this.

He’s in love with the guy, and he’d gone and make him uncomfortable. Stephen doesn’t see him in the same light – and what did Tony even want to achieve with this? Maybe he’d hoped that somewhere, Stephen _does_ think of him like that. It’s not too farfetched; he knows full well that Stephen cares about him, and they’re closer than Tony has ever been to any of his friends, with maybe an exception of Rhodey. 

Or Rocket’s words have stuck in his head and refused to come out, and he groans.

It makes Gamora look up in the middle of her conversation with Drax. Conversation is a big word – she’d been telling him something, and Drax was hardly listening. Tony zoned out as well.

All of the Guardians with the exception of Peter Quill are there, on account of him continuously forgetting Tony. Quill is back at Missouri, spending time with his granddad, or at least, that’s what Tony thinks. The remainder of the Guardians are helping Tony map out the trajectory for when Galactus will reach Earth, but it remains a tricky topic.

‘’Are you alright?’’ she asks.

‘’Ignore him,’’ Rocket says, crossing his arms. ‘’He’s mooning over his sorcerer.’’

Tony throws his notebook at the raccoon, but unfortunately, the furry animal is better at ducking than he’d expected. ‘’I’m going to skin you and sell your fur on e-Bay,’’ he threatens. ‘’I’m not mooning over anyone, I’m – calculating and worrying about the future of the planet, as every sensible person should be doing.’’

Drax frowns. ‘’You are in love with the sorcerer?’’ he asks. ‘’But what about his moving Cloak?’’

Tony opens his mouth, and then decides to close it again. He doesn’t even want to know what Drax is implying.

‘’Leave him alone,’’ Gamora comes to his rescue. ‘’Tony, are you ready to focus?’’

‘’I’m fine. It’s just – are we going to get this calculation more precise? We don’t know how fast Galactus moves and we don’t know any shortcuts he might take. Judging by these figures, it’s going to take him a while to get here, even if he moves straight on. We have time to prepare, that’s what matters.’’

‘’I am Groot,’’ Groot states.

‘’He has a point,’’ Mantis says quietly from the corner.

Tony just shakes his head. ‘’Look, we can continue on later. I’m just going to get some air.’’ He leaves, the door falling behind him with a harsh thump. He can hear the muffled discussion the Guardians are having inside, and he rests against the wall for a few seconds before he starts walking.

Focusing on Galactus is stressful and exhausting, and those are all things he can deal with. Handling the longing in his chest is something different altogether, and the combination makes him itch. It’d be different if they’d managed to lift his curse by now.

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that no one remembers him. With the sorcerers who’ve managed to trick his curse, and the aliens and other non-humans that aren’t affected by it, the number of people who actually know him has steadily increased. None of them include Pepper, or Rhodey, or Peter, or Happy. They aren’t Steve, or Natasha, or Bruce. His world has become a small bubble with a limited number of people, and he’s grown complacent with that.

It’s not enough – not in moments like this. If it were for himself, he could perhaps grow to accept it. Seeing a future in which he’s forever cursed has become far too easy. He’d stay here in the Sanctum, and help out Stephen. He’d give secret upgrades to the Avengers and to Peter, and he could be partly happy. 

The world is at stake, though, not just his own life. He would be able to do more if the Avengers knew who he was, and if the entire world remembered. He’d be able to assist Stark Industries in their efforts to help, and he could have the Guardians work with Quill instead of leaving him out all the time.

He makes up his mind as he has an idea, and makes way to his own room. Dum-E stands in the corner, chirping at him. ‘’Hey, boy,’’ he greets it, even as he crouches to get his hoodie from under his bed. ‘’Don’t worry, daddy is going to spend more time with you again soon. Maybe Stephen can have the Cloak visit you. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’’ He pats the bot on its claw after putting on the hoodie, and then leaves again.

He passes the hallways towards Stephen’s private working room. He knocks at it, but there’s no answer – Stephen’s not in there, just as Tony expected. He opens the door; he really needs to talk to Stephen about locking up his room.

It’s silent. He hesitates for a moment, but then decides to go on in. He knows Stephen has been exhausting himself with the preparations, and this is one task Tony can do by himself. The only thing he needs to know is where Stephen left the sensors.

The curtains block the light of the sun, and he opens them with one hand as he rummages in the drawers. The contents are a wide variety of books and some mystical objects that he tries to avoid. He finds the sensors for Mordo’s magic underneath a few scribbled papers. Tony shakes his head at Stephen’s illegible doctor’s writing, but then stuffs the sensors in his pockets. They have a total of eight, and he knows that Stephen always carries one in his Cloak.

That makes nine. If the Sanctum doesn’t have time to try and find Mordo, then Tony will take it upon himself to further his case. He can’t fully help defeat Galactus until he can solve his curse, and he can’t do that until he catches Mordo and makes him give up whatever he’s planning. 

He opens Stephen’s window, and activates his suit. As it forms over his body, he leaves through the window and flies up into the air.


	27. Chapter 27

If there is a single thing in the world that will manage to rouse Stephen from any place he’s sitting, it’s tea. A cup of simple green tea is enough to give him enough energy to deal with anything he doesn’t necessarily wish to.

On the other hand, it’s also immensely difficult to get Stephen to leave his cup of tea once he’s drinking it. When he worked in the hospital, most of his colleagues knew that it needed to be a truly intriguing case that would make him leave his cup of tea. Most of the inhabitants of the Sanctum have learnt the same rule, and none so much as Wong. 

It’s one of those things you learn about each other, when you become friends. Stephen knows not to disturb Wong before ten, if it can be avoided; he knows not to keep his books away from the library longer than allowed or to dog-ear the pages. Wong, in turn, has learnt not to call body parts by the wrong name, make any statements about medicine at all, and mostly, not to interrupt Stephen when he’s drinking his tea.

The fact that Wong keeps standing in his door opening means that there is something gravely wrong, then, even as he grimaces at the sight of the cup of tea in Stephen’s hands.

‘’What?’’ he asks, as he can see Wong debating with himself about whether to come in or not. Maybe it’s not that bad, then; if it was truly catastrophically terrible, he wouldn’t have hesitated. Semi-bad, then. He can deal with semi-bad.

‘’We’re not sure where Tony is,’’ he says, and Stephen puts down the cup immediately. 

‘’What do you mean?’’ he says, rising and pacing towards Wong. ‘’Isn’t he doing something with the Guardians?’’

‘’We believed so,’’ Wong starts. ‘’They say he went out for some air, but that was a few hours ago, and we haven’t seen him since then. We’ve looked all over the Sanctum, but – he isn’t here. I thought you should know.’’

‘’And he didn’t say anything about leaving?’’ Stephen says. He needs to be calm; Tony can’t have vanished. ‘’Didn’t anyone bring him to the Avengers Compound?’’

‘’No one,’’ Wong replies, and he looks somewhat worried himself. Stephen takes a deep breath. 

He nods quickly, and thoughts are whirling inside his mind. He doesn’t know where Tony might’ve gone; the only places he can think of are Avengers Compound or Stark Tower, and neither are close enough to go for a casual walk without the assistance of portals. ‘’Did they say anything about why he left?’’ he asks. ‘’Was he upset about something?’’

The thought of Tony having another anxiety attack all by himself is almost painful enough to make him sick with concern. He never wants to see the man so unlike himself again – Tony is the strongest person he knows, and to see him so desperate makes Stephen ache. To think of him not being there to offer support – well, he doesn’t want to.

Wong shrugs. ‘’The raccoon said something about just joking around. I didn’t ask any further – Stephen, why is your window open? It’s freezing in here.’’

Stephen looks towards his window and frowns. The Cloak is thick enough for him to never go cold, and he hadn’t noticed it at first, with the curtains mostly covering it. ‘’I didn’t open it,’’ he says, because he never does. Wong is right, though: it’s opened enough far enough for a man to climb in or out, and he pales at the realization. ‘’Do you think –‘’

He doesn’t end his sentence, but Wong’s head whips towards him in alarm. ‘’Mordo?’’ he asks. ‘’But why – we would’ve noticed. You have your sensor with you, and there’s more on your desk.’’

Stephen frowns and opens the drawers. ‘’No, they’re not,’’ he realizes, and turns over his papers in a frantic search. ‘’They were here, but they’re not anymore. I still have mine, but the rest – they’re gone.’’

Now Wong takes a deep breath. ‘’Is it, in any way, possible that Mordo or one of his accomplices have entered the Sanctum, stolen the sensors, and kidnapped Tony?’’ he asks.

Stephen doesn’t even want to consider it. ‘’They would’ve had to avoid a good number of people,’’ he says sceptically. ‘’If they used magic, my sensor would’ve gone off. And Tony’s not a damsel in distress, he would’ve fought back. Someone would’ve heard, right?’’

‘’Right,’’ Wong says.

They’re both silent for a few seconds, just staring at each other. Stephen scrapes his throat. ‘’Just to be sure, let’s go look for him,’’ he says, and they both start moving.

The cup of tea sits on the table, forgotten.

~*~

Tony loves flying over New York. It’s one of his favourite things; rise above the city and watch. He has a little more to do than that, however, armed with the sensors. FRIDAY is helping him calculate.

It’s a plan, after all, even if there’s many loopholes. The sensors have a decent reach, even if it’s not anything extraordinary. He can put them on the buildings in the blocks around the Sanctum and have FRIDAY send him a warning if they sense Mordo anywhere near. Now Mordo won’t know where they are, exactly, and they’ll have a lot more use for them than just hand them out to random sorcerers who will mostly be in the Sanctum.

It’s not optimal, and he’s fully aware of that. But it’s better than nothing, and with the number of sensors he has, he can cover a perfectly nice, compact part of New York, and Mordo won’t know of a thing. If they’re close to the Sanctum, FRIDAY can warn them, and they might be just a bit less surprised by sudden attacks. 

That’s the plan, at least, and Tony hums to himself as he finds buildings to attach the sensors to. It’s more difficult than he thought, because he needs to place them where they won’t be seen or taken off, but he also needs them to cover the area he wants them to. Preferably, he doesn’t want to be seen when he places them, so he tries to be as clandestine as possible about it. 

It still takes him a few hours to optimally place all of them. He also enjoys the view in that time and empties his head; nothing manages to clear his mind better than flying. 

While he’s not busy with other things anymore, he takes a trip to the donut store and buys a few of them. He’s deserved some sweetness, and he’s skipped lunch anyway. 

He’s in a good mood when he makes his way back to the Sanctum, casually flying until he spots Bleecker Street. He drops right before the stairs of the front, and his suit folds back into his hoodie. Taking a bite from a donut, he just wants to knock on the door when it opens before him.

‘’Hey, Wong,’’ Tony says cheerfully.

Within the span of a second, Wong’s eyes grow and then narrow. Without a word, he grabs Tony by his sleeve and drags him inside. ‘’I can’t believe this,’’ he fumes. ‘’Gone for hours without a word, and you say ‘hey’? Tony Stark, are you a child? We were just on the verge of calling everyone to go searching for you!’’

‘’Me?’’ Tony repeats incredulously. ‘’What’s going on?’’

‘’Stephen!’’ Wong bellows up the stairs. ‘’Quit the search! He’s here!’’

He proceeds to let go of Tony and moves up the stairs, heading towards Stephen’s private room. At a loss as to what to do otherwise, Tony just follows him, taking two steps at a time. Stephen’s head pokes out of his chamber, and he steps out into the hallway. The Cloak flies towards him and starts batting at him. Tony tries to hold onto his donut.

‘’Quit that, I’m fine,’’ Tony says, and he pushes the Cloak away. Offended, it disappears again into the room, apparently done with humans for the day. Stephen’s eyes are dark as he focuses on Tony’s, and an unwilling shudder goes through him. 

‘’Wong, can you leave us?’’ he asks, his voice low and icy. ‘’Tony – can you come with me for a second?’’

Wong nods and leaves with a last glare at Tony. Tony follows Stephen into the room again. The windows are closed now, but there’s still a chill lingering in the room. He can’t have closed it too long ago, then. ‘’Sorry,’’ Tony says, as Stephen paces at the other end of the room. ‘’I didn’t realize – were you worried?’’

‘’Worried?’’ Stephen bites, and turns to him with crossed arms. ‘’The window fully open, the sensors we made gone, and you gone without a trace – no, why should I be worried? It’s not as if anyone is _after us_ , after all, or has already cursed you? Do you _want_ me to go mad?’’

Tony winces. ‘’In my defence, I didn’t realize what that’d look like,’’ he says. ‘’Hey, no, don’t be mad. Here, you want a donut?’’

He raises his own, as an offering. Stephen clenches his jaws and presses his lips together. ‘’No, I don’t want a _donut_ ,’’ he hisses, vibrating with anger, and takes a step closer towards Tony. ‘’I want to know why you don’t _tell_ me these things?’’ With each word, he takes a step closer. Tony doesn’t dare do anything but stand still, eyes focused on Stephen’s face.

‘’I don’t –‘’ he says, and puts down his donut on the nearest desk. It’s probably not the best idea to hold a donut in a fight. It might become a victim. And Stephen seems to be really angry, this time.

‘’No, you _don’t_ ,’’ Stephen bites, and now he stands right before him, looking down. ‘’You don’t know, do you? You run around and knock on doors and leave out of windows and go to stores to fight sorcerers. I can’t do this, Tony, you have no idea how much I can’t do this – I can’t watch you put yourself in danger, I can’t watch the moment you’ll make the wrong decision and put yourself in an early grave. And you may not care, you may fool yourself into thinking no one cares, but I _do_ , alright? When are you going to _see_?’’

His voice breaks at that last syllable, and Tony frowns as he puts a placating hand on Stephen’s arm. ‘’See what?’’ he asks quietly.

Stephen stares at him. His anger seems to have left him and has made place for a tense silence. Tony stares back, his pulse speeding up as the precious long seconds pass by. Stephen’s clear blue pupils are somewhat dilated, and Tony can clearly hear the hitch in his breath. He moves his hand on Stephen’s arm, and for a single moment, he’s stroking the sorcerer’s arm. 

Stephen closes the distance between them at that, and Tony’s mind goes blank as Stephen kisses him before his vigour kicks in. He desperately puts his hands on Stephen’s back, pulling him closer, not willing to lose a second. Stephen’s one hand comes to rest on the small of Tony’s back and the other in his hair, keeping their faces pressed together. As if Tony would pull away – as if he ever will.

Tony’s back hits the wall, and he didn’t even realize they were moving. The awareness of anything but Stephen leaves him soon enough as the other man presses him against the cold surface, and Tony manages to get his hands underneath his shirt, pressing his icy hands against the warmth of Stephen’s skin. He shudders and Tony smiles into the bruising kiss, victorious. 

They slow down gradually, Tony keeping Stephen close even as their one hard kiss turns into multiple smaller kisses, just peppering each other’s lips with sensitive pecks until Tony moves his face enough that their lips aren’t touching anymore. He rests his face against Stephen’s collarbone, instead, still holding onto him, and breathes heavily. He can hear Stephen panting equally, and smirks into the man’s shirt.

‘’Remind me to make you angry more often,’’ he jokes, though his heart is beating wildly.

Stephen doesn’t react immediately, and Tony wishes he could see his face. Then the sorcerer leans back and releases Tony from where he was stuck between his body and the wall, and his wish is fulfilled. Stephen’s lips are red and bruised, and he licks them even as he stares at Tony with some bewilderment. 

‘’You taste of donut,’’ Stephen says, and Tony laughs.

They’re silent for a few more seconds as they both quietly regain their breath. They probably need to talk about this, Tony realizes, but he’s not really in the mood to. Instead, he traces imaginary lines on Stephen’s forearm. He does this for a few seconds before he realizes that Stephen is looking at him and he meets his eyes.

This kiss is more controlled than their first one. Stephen’s hand has slipped from Tony’s hair towards his nape and he uses it to push Tony towards him, and he obliges easily. He grips Stephen’s arm, now, and relishes in the feeling of Stephen’s body so close to his; their lips moving together, feeling nothing but the warmth of his chest.

He holds Stephen there, even when the sorcerer shifts – he doesn’t want to talk, he just wants to kiss him. He could do this all day and forget the rest of his worries. In fact, he just might. He’s just getting really into it when the knock on the door makes Stephen look away.

The door opens while Tony’s still holding Stephen closely, and they don’t have time to compose themselves.

Rocket Raccoon raises an eyebrow at Tony, clearly unimpressed. ‘’Who’s ‘not your anything’ now, huh?’’ he says, crossing his arms. ‘’Either you’re a liar, Stark, or you make quick work of something. Hey, am I interrupting something?’’

‘’Yes,’’ Tony says.

‘’No,’’ Stephen says at the exact same time, and they share a look.

‘’No?’’ Tony repeats.

Stephen lets go of him, and takes a step back. He looks thoroughly debauched and even more confused. It is kind of adorable, really. ‘’Yes?’’

Tony takes one last look at him, and then turns to Rocket. ‘’Can’t it wait?’’ he asks.

Rocket shrugs. ‘’Meh. Could be nothing, could be that Quill decides to leave me if we don’t walk fast enough. No way to tell, really.’’

‘’Back up here,’’ Stephen says, and a bit of composure is coming back to him. Tony mourns the moment they were having, but he might as well catch Rocket’s story now. ‘’Leave?’’

‘’Yeah, apparently we’re going into space,’’ the raccoon tells them. ‘’Bit of a last-minute thing, but that’s the Guardians for you. We’re full of surprises. Quill is edgy, and Gamora is agreeing, and that usually means that the decision-making process is over.’’

‘’Sounds about right,’’ Tony responds dryly. ‘’Where are they right now?’’

‘’Downstairs,’’ Rocket says, and starts walking, seemingly presuming that they’ll follow. They don’t have much of a choice; they can hardly let the Guardians go just like that, but Tony curses that their moment is gone now. He doesn’t want to let go of Stephen; he wants to cling to him and let the world pass by.

Stephen looks over at him, a weak smile on his face. His hair is a mess, and Tony doesn’t doubt that his is, too. ‘’We should go,’’ he says awkwardly.

‘’We’re going to talk about this later,’’ Stephen says, sternly. 

Tony rolls his eyes and straightens out his clothes. He takes his donut from the desk and takes a languid bite from it, savouring the sweetness. ‘’Sure,’’ he says, after swallowing. ‘’If it is talking that you want to do. C’mon, let’s see what the Guardians are up to.’’

He doesn’t check to see if Stephen is following as he finishes his donut.

~*~

As it turns out, the Guardians are waiting for them downstairs. Master Brown and Wong are already standing there, quietly discussing the plans.

‘’Hey, Strange,’’ Quill says to him, and he smiles politely. His eyes linger on Tony for a second, but he clearly dismisses the inventor, not remembering him at all. ‘’So, change of plans.’’

‘’I gathered,’’ Stephen says dryly. Wong eyes him suspiciously, and he tries not to fidget under his friend’s gaze. It’s not as if Wong can know what just happened; it’s not obvious until you’re looking for the signs. Stephen risks a quick glance towards Tony. His lips are red, but that could just be from the glaze of the donut as well, and his hair has been messier before.

‘’We’re sorry for leaving so suddenly,’’ Gamora says, and her eyes do rest on Tony before they slide back to Stephen’s. ‘’We just don’t feel that we can do much more, here. We’ve given everything we know to Tony, and he’ll be able to work out the details by himself. We’re going to see if we can find signs of Galactus, and we’ll stay in contact.’’

‘’Just be careful,’’ Tony says. 

‘’Careful?’’ Drax says incredulously. ‘’Ha! As if anything could stop us!’’

‘’Technically, a world-devouring monster might,’’ Rocket reminds him.

‘’Details,’’ Drax waves away. 

‘’Could you bring them to their ship?’’ Stephen asks Master Brown. She nods easily, and it only takes two more minutes for the Guardians to be on their way, leaving the hallway silent.

Only the three of them are left, staring at each other and not quite knowing what to say. Stephen doesn’t look at Tony, knowing he might give away something as he feels the heat rise to his cheeks.

Wong turns to Tony and him, crossing his arms and sniffing. ‘’I don’t know what Stephen has told you,’’ he starts, ‘’but you can’t just leave in the middle of a crisis without telling anyone about it. In the Sanctum, everyone relies on each other. You can’t be different in this – we’ve talked to you about this before.’’

‘’I’m sorry,’’ Tony says. ‘’Look, I’ll try to be better at this. Stephen rebuked me properly already.’’ At this, he gives Stephen a fleeting look before turning away, but even one look manages to have him shift his weight already. 

He doesn’t know what to feel. On one hand, he’s overjoyed – Tony was kissing him back, and he hasn’t even dreamt anything like it yet. He wanted it, obviously, or he wouldn’t have continued. He didn’t push Stephen away and he’d been annoyed at the interruption.

On the other hand, he is completely confounded. It wasn’t too long ago that Tony said he was still in love with Pepper – he’s clearly not feeling what Stephen does, then. So what is his reasoning? If it’s merely physical for him, then he shouldn’t go through with it. Stephen is in far too deep for that to happen.

Yet he’s not sure he could refuse if the offer came.

It’s a mess, and chaos reigns in his mind. His body goes through all the expected motions, but his consciousness lags behind, still thinking about his lips on Tony’s. Still focused on the way his hand felt in that soft hair.

He tries to shake himself out of it. ‘’Why did you leave, anyway?’’ he asks. He meant to ask earlier, he remembers; obviously, he hadn’t managed to come around to it.

Tony shrugs. ‘’I took my suit and left the sensors all over the neighbourhood,’’ he says. ‘’I know you don’t have time to work on it, so I figured I might as well. It won’t cover all of it, but a large part of the areas surrounding the Sanctum have a sensor now. If Mordo comes anywhere near, we’ll know. At least the sensors will have more use than if they’re just lying around here.’’

Stephen blinks and thinks it over. ‘’We didn’t think about that,’’ he says. 

‘’Yeah, well, we were busy with other problems, and it’s not fool-proof,’’ Tony admits. ‘’But Mordo doesn’t know the sensors are there, at least, and FRIDAY will inform us if any of them go off. It’s something.’’

‘’It’s a good idea,’’ Wong says, clearly grudgingly. ‘’You still should’ve told us.’’

‘’I promise, I will, in the future,’’ Tony answers, crossing his arms as he regards the two of them. His eyes linger on Stephen, and it’s hard to keep away from Tony now that he knows that his affection is not as unwanted. Tony’s motivation is unclear, but for now, Stephen may just be allowed to slide his hands over that body and kiss him.

‘’We have a meeting with Master Minoru in a few minutes,’’ Wong then reminds him, and Stephen feels a surge of annoyance in his chest. Tony grimaces for a second, and it’s obvious to Stephen that he’d hoped for a revival of their earlier actions. It’s enough to give him hope. Obviously, Tony still likes him, if not as a lover then as a friend – maybe he does mean something more? 

He needs to stop thinking about this until he can talk to Tony. That’s the only way he won’t go insane. ‘’Right,’’ Stephen says, and turns to Wong again, no matter how hard it is to tear his gaze from Tony. ‘’Lead the way, Wong.’’

Wong turns away to create a portal, and in that moment Stephen takes the gamble to take Tony’s hand and squeeze it for a second. He looks at him, trying to convey his thoughts. ‘’Good luck,’’ Tony says, and he squeezes back.

With some regret, Stephen has to let go then. ‘’Afterwards,’’ he says under his breath, so low that Wong won’t hear, and then follows his friend without looking back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wink wink nudge nudge


	28. Chapter 28

Tony doesn’t want to admit that he waits for Stephen, but maybe he does just a little. There’s a small stab of disappointment when the hours fly by and he doesn’t come, but he knows how busy the life of the Sorcerer Supreme is by now, especially in times of crisis. His time gets sucked up and he’s probably been claimed by someone else right after coming out of his meeting, but it’s still frustrating.

He wants Stephen, more than anything in the world. And just now that something has been set in motion, they’re being kept apart by the coming threat. 

He distracts himself in the library, because it’s the safest place he can think of in the Sanctum. He’s spent so many hours here that it’s more like his room than the actual place he sleeps in. He brought Dum-E with him, who’s uselessly browsing through the old newspaper stash again. Anytime the small bot thinks he’s found something of interest, he holds it out. Tony doesn’t know where he gets his fondness from browsing newspapers from, but he can’t fault Dum-E for having interests.

Tony is working on a new idea for the ships, silently scrabbling in his notebook. Dum-E whirs and hits his shoulder with his claw. Tony pushes him away gently. ‘’Not now, Dum-E,’’ he mutters. Dum-E hums and does it again, and he looks up at the article Dum-E want to show him.

‘’Oh, hey, nice find,’’ he says, and takes it. He’s on the picture in the front, with a few other scientists. It’s a relatively recent picture; this was only back in 2015, and he remembers the project fondly. He’s not a fan of working together, but this particular group hadn’t minded Tony’s sassiness. Bruce is also in the picture, and he melancholically smiles at his old friend.

There’s only five of them, and the three others are looking just as solemnly in the picture, befitting price-winning scientists. He goes over them, remembering their contributions, until his finger finds the face of the woman on the utmost right, and his mind goes blank.

He frowns. He should remember her. He can’t even think of her name, anymore, or anything to do with her at all. And he remembers the project keenly, because he’d enjoyed it so much. It’s hard to believe he would have simply forgotten one of the participants, especially because they were only with – well, if she was there, six. Six scientists, not five. How did he forget about that?

He tries to find her name on the article. Five of the names he knows; Dr Alice Snyder is the only one that’s unfamiliar to him, and seeing her name doesn’t ring a bell.

A horrifying thought enters his mind, and he takes his pencil and circles her face. Then he rips a page out of his notebook.

_Are there others who have been cursed?_ he writes down on it, _Dr Alice Snyder; New York Times 3-14-2015_. He places it on the desk and turns towards Dum-E. 

‘’Are there more pictures of me with other people?’’ he asks the bot, and he can’t help the urgency in his voice. ‘’C’mon, boy, help me look. I can’t stop thinking about her or I’ll forget.’’

With Dum-E, he searches the newspapers, muttering the doctor’s name to himself constantly as he searches for newspapers. He takes out people who are on the front and he doesn’t know, throwing them on a stack on the desk, and always makes sure his own note is on top. He has about three newspapers when the library doors open, and Tony turns around.

‘’Stephen,’’ he says, and he’s aware of the mild alarm in his voice. Stephen frowns, and Tony can’t think about him right now, he has to think of Alice Snyder, a woman who might be in the exact same position as he is. He throws the paper with her on the front at him, and Stephen catches it easily. ‘’Dr Alice Snyder. Do you know her?’’

Stephen makes a face at him but does look at the paper. ‘’I don’t,’’ he answers calmly, ‘’but you do, apparently. Hey, I read about this project. I didn’t remember you were in it.’’

‘’I don’t remember her,’’ Tony tells him. ‘’I remember everything about that project – but not her. Doesn’t even ring a bell. No idea whatsoever.’’

Stephen lowers the newspaper and looks at him intently. ‘’What are you suggesting?’’ he says slowly, and Tony thinks that he knows fully well what he is suggesting, but doesn’t want to admit it.

‘’We never stopped to think if other people were cursed,’’ Tony says. ‘’Why didn’t we? I’m not that special – if they did it to me, who knows what other people they did this to? Honestly, who knows, because no one’s going to remember, right? What if there’s hundreds of others like me, walking out there without a soul to remember them? Not everyone knows you guys, after all, that was just me being lucky.’’

‘’But why?’’ Stephen presses. ‘’Why would Mordo curse multiple people?’’

‘’You thought he cursed me because he wanted something with the Avengers,’’ Tony says. ‘’I don’t think so. There’s something else going on, something we’re not seeing yet. We have to help these people, Stephen – who knows what might’ve happened to them! Can’t we – I don’t know…’’

Stephen looks down at the newspaper. ‘’We could write an ad,’’ he says slowly.

‘’Yes!’’ Tony exclaims. ‘’Yes. Alright, we should put out an ad. I’ll put something online as well – if we know people’s names, maybe I can figure out a way to send them something personal so they’ll see.’’

‘’You’re forgetting something very important here, Tony,’’ Stephen says sternly, and Tony deflates.

‘’That I’m going to forget? Yes, I know. But not if I hold onto it for long enough – it’s... I can help them, right? That’s something we can do?’’

Stephen sighs and walks forward until he’s standing in front of him, and he puts down the newspaper. ‘’It’s harder to hold onto a thought than you’re thinking,’’ he says. ‘’We can try, but it’s not going to be easy. We’re going to lose any recollection that these people even exist, that there are others who’ve been cursed like you.’’

‘’I made myself a note,’’ Tony says, but his enthusiasm has been curbed. 

Stephen smiles gently. ‘’And that’s a start,’’ he says. ‘’Look – we’ll write it down, and we’ll make sure we see it, and then we’ll get around to it. It worked when you just came to the Sanctum, and it’ll work now. We will help them, Tony. Even if it takes a bit longer than you want it to take.’’

With that, he writes down the details of their conversation on Tony’s note. Tony watches him scribble, focusing on the long and nimble fingers. ‘’Now you’re going to have to read that to me, because your handwriting is atrocious,’’ he says.

When he finishes the note, Stephen looks up. ‘’Maybe it’s selfish of me,’’ he starts, as he puts down the pencil, ‘’but I’d actually hoped for another kind of greeting when I came in.’’

Tony can’t help but grin, and moves around the desk that divides them. He ignores Dum-E’s whirring and stands close enough to Stephen that their bodies would be touching if either of them moved forward any further. He looks up, blinking innocently. ‘’What kind of greeting did you have in mind, then?’’ he purrs, but he doesn’t wait for Stephen’s answer to pull him down and kiss him eagerly.

Stephen responds immediately, resting his hands on the sides of Tony’s face. He doesn’t attempt to deepen the kiss, but he doesn’t let go either, and they stand there for a while. Tony feels a flush coming up to his face; he’s never been kissed in a way that’s both so kind and so desperate. Stephen isn’t taking anything that Tony’s not willing to give.

When they are both out of breath, they pull apart, just staring for a few moments. Tony wants to go in for another kiss, tip-toeing to reach, but Stephen stops him by resting his hand on his shoulder and quietly holding him back. Tony feels the doubt creep into his chest, but he draws back and grins instead. 

‘’Having second thoughts already?’’ he asks, but his heart is pounding as Stephen takes a step back.

‘’Honestly?’’ the sorcerer replies. ‘’I’m past the thirtieth thought already.’’

‘’Ever considered maybe you think too much?’’ Tony asks, and leans against the desk. ‘’It’s simple, isn’t it? Just tell me what you want, and I tell you whether I’m willing to give it to you. And just so you know, I’m ready to give an awful lot.’’

Stephen looks at him, and it’s both so sad and hopeful that Tony wants to just hug him until that expression goes away. He’s just not sure he’s allowed to do that – he doesn’t know what Stephen wants from him either, and he can only hope that the sorcerer will allow him the chance to give it a shot.

‘’I can’t do this if you’re still in love with someone else,’’ Stephen says, and his voice is low. ‘’I can’t do this if we don’t want this equally. It’s not just physical for me, Tony, I’ve never been like that. I care about you, and I can’t do anything about it, but I’m not going to let you yank me in whichever direction you want me to go. It’s – that’s not fair to me.’’

‘’Hey, hold up a second,’’ Tony says, and he takes Stephen’s hands in his own. He finally gets to stroke the scars, like he’s wanted to do for ages. ‘’Why’d you think that? I’m not in love with someone else, I’m crazy about you, alright? I just thought – I didn’t think you’d be interested.’’

He smiles deprecatingly at Stephen’s hands, then, because he’s not sure what else to do with himself. 

‘’But what about Pepper?’’ Stephen presses. Tony frowns, and Stephen’s hands leave his and tilt up his face instead, so that he’s looking into those light irises. ‘’Tell me, Tony. What am I, here?’’

Stephen’s eyes are intent, and they seem to see right through him. Tony opens his mouth, and closes it again. ‘’I’m not –‘’ he starts, and pauses, scowling. He doesn’t know how to put this kind of thing into words. ‘’She’s not – it’s different, right?’’

‘’And what if you’d never been cursed?’’ Stephen asks, and his voice is so pained that it aches Tony in turn. ‘’What if you hadn’t known who she is with, right now? What if you hadn’t turned –‘’

‘’Stop that,’’ Tony commands him, and pulls Stephen close enough to kiss him silent. Stephen lets him, and afterwards watches him like an animal expecting to be hurt. Tony kisses him again, just so he doesn’t have to see him look so uncertain, and the words form for themselves as he draws back. ‘’Life isn’t made out of what-ifs, alright? It’s made of moments like these. I know what I want right here and right now, and it’s not her. It’s you, and it’s been you for a while now. I just didn’t have the guts to tell you before. You’re not a second choice, here – you’re the only choice.’’

Stephen regards him for a moment before he closes the distance between them again, his hands roaming Tony’s back. There’s definitely no reason to stop Stephen from doing that, so Tony just purrs into the kiss and pulls Stephen closer to him. It forces him to stop leaning against the desk and sit on it instead, and papers ruffle underneath him, but it doesn’t matter when Stephen is kissing him like this – intent and asking, and Tony gives him everything.

Stephen is an excellent kisser, and he finds out everything Tony likes with the methodical preciseness of a doctor. Whenever Tony shivers, he’ll repeat the action, and he manages to drive him mad within minutes.

They break apart, both panting. Tony didn’t even realize that he’d almost pulled off Stephen’s shirt already, his hands resting high on Stephen’s back. The pale skin is an alluring sight, but Stephen draws back, still breathing heavily. 

‘’You still haven’t told me what you want,’’ Tony points out, catching his breath. ‘’You told me what you don’t want, but we don’t define ourselves by negatives.’’

‘’You,’’ Stephen says, and kisses him only once again before stopping to watch him, fondly. ‘’Your tears and your joys, and your curses and your blessings. I want everything and anything you’re willing to offer, as long as you want to share it with me.’’

‘’You can have it,’’ Tony says, gently enfolding Stephen’s hands again and leaning against his chest. ‘’You already do.’’

‘’Come here,’’ Stephen says quietly, and Tony slides off the desk. Some papers fall on the ground with his movement. ‘’What are those?’’

Tony blinks and collects them. ‘’Guess we were working on something,’’ he says lightly, and shows Stephen.

~*~

Vision in Stephen’s antiquated private room looks odd. There is a significant contrast between the brownish, sensible furniture and the hyper-modern purple android that he can’t help but notice, and Stephen has to supress a smile as he considers all the differences and similarities between the Sanctum and the Avengers Compound.

‘’I’m not sure where else to send them,’’ Tony admits, tapping his fingers on the wooden table as he watches Vision read the ad he’s written up. Stephen watches him and the nervous excitement he portrays. ‘’Besides, we’ll need you to handle them. We won’t remember them – I can’t tell you how many times I’ve started over. I _actually_ can’t tell you, because I forgot. It’s so weird. Anyway, do you think that’s something you can do?’’

Vision’s eyes flick to Wanda, who quietly sits beside him, before going back to Tony. ‘’How many people do you think this will be?’’ he asks.

‘’I’m not sure, but if we made an estimation at one point, it’ll be in the folder we gave you,’’ Stephen says wryly. Vision takes the file and browses the pages.

‘’You don’t remember any of these?’’ he asks, his voice a bit incredulous. ‘’I suppose I have not heard anything of them in quite some time, but these are all high-profile figures.’’

‘’How many did we write down?’’ Tony asks.

Wanda reads over them, too. ‘’Six names,’’ she says, and bites her lower lip. ‘’I don’t remember any of them.’’

Vision looks at her worriedly, and then back at Stephen. ‘’What does this mean?’’ he asks.

‘’Again, if I had any suspicions, I’d have written them down,’’ he says, nodding at the papers. ‘’I don’t remember, and I don’t think I can make any guess now either. Mordo told Tony that it’s a punishment, of some sort, but it seems odd that he would curse so many people who haven’t committed actual crimes.’’

‘’He is most certainly going after well-known people,’’ Vision states. ‘’And you want me to place this advertisement in the newspaper and try to find these people? I can try my best, certainly, but it will be difficult to remind the other Avengers of the temporary inhabitants, should I be able to take them in.’’

Tony sighs. ‘’You’re the only one who can do this. You’re the only one who knows these people and who’s going to remember them. If anyone is able to figure out who we’ve forgotten all about, it’s you. Just try to find people, figure out if there’s any more people we don’t know anymore. I know it’s a lot to put on top of preparing for Galactus, but we can’t let these people wander if we know they’re out there.’’

The clock ticks in the corner, and Stephen watches as Vision sighs and nods. ‘’I will endeavour to find all of them, Mr Stark. If it is in my power to help, then I will. If you don’t mind – we _are_ busy indeed, and I would like to get started as soon as possible. Wanda, if you’ll join me?’’

She stands quickly. ‘’Of course,’’ she says, and then turns to Stephen. ‘’Do you perhaps soon have time to help me out again? My control is improving, but I think I need some fine-tuning tips.’’

‘’Soon,’’ Stephen promises her, and creates a portal back to the Compound for them. With a grateful smile and a nod, she leaves through it with Vision, leaving Stephen alone with Tony.

He closes the portal again. Once upon a time, he would’ve been bothered by being alone with Tony, worrying he might gave away something that was unwanted. Now, he just watches Tony rise and smile at him, soft and warm. He’d never believed such a smile would ever be directed at him, but now he’s allowed to kiss it, so he does.

Tony hums and draws back after a single peck. ‘’It’s so weird to think that everyone must’ve forgotten about me similarly,’’ he says. ‘’I used to know those people, and now I don’t, and it’s not anything I can help. It certainly puts things in perspective.’’

Stephen furrows his brows. ‘’What?’’ he asks.

It’s enough to draw a sigh from Tony. ‘’You’ve forgotten all about it again, haven’t you?’’ he says. ‘’Damn, that’s disconcerting. Never mind, Stephen, just let it go. Hey, I had a question.’’ 

‘’About what?’’ Stephen asks, but Tony just pulls at his shirt so Stephen will duck low enough for Tony to kiss easily. He smiles into it; Tony isn’t necessarily small, but he is definitely below average in the size department, whereas Stephen is taller than the regular man. Tony has already shown an eager tendency to just pull Stephen down whenever he feels like it, and he’s not in the habit of discouraging that kind of behaviour.

Tony’s stubble scratches against his own before the kiss ends, and Stephen can’t mourn its loss as he watches Tony’s twinkling eyes and tilted lips. ‘’Well,’’ Tony says, and brushes his own lips against Stephen’s skin as he talks, ‘’I was wondering how open you wanted to be about this. You know, with the Masters. I’m not sure if there’s any rules for this kind of thing – none of the other Masters have a partner, right? Not one that I’ve seen.’’

‘’No rules,’’ Stephen says, but he pushes Tony away with some reluctance to be able to actually see his face for this conversation. Tony goes willingly, but his eyes are dark and mischievous. ‘’Just guidelines. I’m not going to keep secrets from my Masters if it can be helped. I think they should know.’’

‘’What would those guidelines be?’’ the inventor asks, crossing his arms.

Stephen grimaces. ‘’Being in a relationship is not a recommended course of action,’’ he admits, ‘’which, of course, has been pointed out to me before. It doesn’t make a difference – a few Masters may grumble, but they can’t do anything. You’re perfectly safe in the Sanctum.’’

Tony shuffles and looks at him intently. ‘’Believe it or not, it’s not actually me I’m worried about,’’ he says. ‘’This is your home, Stephen – if I’m making this difficult, or if they’re going to do something to you, then we – well. Okay, I’d be lying if I said we could still stop, because I’m positively certain I don’t have that kind of self-control. Oh, I know, you could drop that spell that makes you remember me and I’d have to behave.’’

Just the thought alone makes Stephen pale. ‘’Never,’’ he says, and he encircles Tony with his arms, just because he can. ‘’Don’t even joke about me forgetting about you again. Ever. No one in the Sanctum will oppose you, Tony – it’s not a rule, and I’m the Sorcerer Supreme. Every Master here respects both you and me. I’m certain no one will object.’’

‘’If you say so,’’ Tony muffles into his shirt, and Stephen drops a kiss on top of his head. 

‘’I do say so,’’ he says, and smiles as he releases Tony.

It does not matter what anyone says. Stephen never believed he’d be able to hold Tony as he does, and he’d made his peace with that. Now Tony seems to be equally surprised to find Stephen being as infatuated as he is, and finally he doesn’t have to hide it. It’s welcome, and it’s wanted, and Stephen has never wanted anyone quite as much as he wants Tony.

He has him, and he’s not letting go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are, passing the 100k! I'm so happy with everyone that's still here with me reading this, you guys are the best. Your comments always make my day - I love hearing your theories and your thoughts, and I just wanted to thank you all for giving me such lovely feedback. I already loved writing this fic, but you all have made it a hundred times better! All of your support has given me the self-confidence to start some other projects I may have decided not to write otherwise and I love all of you for it :)
> 
> Hope you liked this chapter and see you in the next one!


	29. Chapter 29

The dots on the glob still shine as powerfully as ever, and Stephen can take the reassurance that no matter what is coming, the Sanctums will be as strong as ever. His eyes track everything going on, but there is nothing to indicate anything is worse off than the last time he did this.

He scribbles it down in his notes, just when Wong enters.

‘’Are you ready to go to the Avengers Compound?’’ his friend asks him, regarding his actions.

Stephen makes one more note before looking up. ‘’Almost,’’ he says casually. ‘’Give me two minutes. Is everyone on schedule?’’

‘’Only Master Haman has been too busy with instructing the apprentices,’’ Wong says. ‘’I don’t know about Tony; he’s at Avengers Compound and I figured we’d ask later.’’

‘’Tony’s on schedule,’’ Stephen mutters, inspecting the globe carefully and writing down another note. 

He doesn’t notice that Wong is staring at him until he looks up to find him doing so. ‘’Why are you smiling?’’ Wong asks, his brows furrowed. ‘’Did I miss something? Galactus is still coming to devour our energy, we still haven’t found Mordo, and we are no closer to solving Tony’s curse.’’

‘’You’re right,’’ Stephen acknowledges, but he can’t get his grin to leave his face. 

‘’Tell me.’’

Stephen puts down his pencil and rises. He puts a hand on Wong’s shoulder. ‘’I know you’re going to think I’m an idiot,’’ he says, ‘’and that’s completely fine. Maybe I am. But I –‘’

‘’Don’t tell me you kissed Tony,’’ Wong interferes.

There’s nothing Stephen can do but grin. ‘’I did,’’ he states gleefully. ‘’And he feels the same. I know you think this is a bad idea, Wong, I know you do, and you know how much I value your advice. This thing with Tony – it changes nothing for the plans. It just might mean I’m a little bit happier afterwards.’’

Wong’s face betrays nothing, and he regards Stephen silently for a few seconds. Stephen just stares back. Wong is his best friend, but even for him, he won’t let Tony go. He just hopes that he won’t even have to make that kind of choice.

‘’I’m happy for you,’’ Wong says eventually. ‘’And I believe you. You haven’t let us down so far, Stephen, and I have faith you will not. Tony is a good man, and you deserve each other.’’

‘’Thank you,’’ Stephen says earnestly, relief filling him. ‘’I’m ready now. Shall we go?’’

~*~

Tony stares at the young teenager sitting before him, and then looks back at Vision before returning to watch Peter.

‘’How did you think this was a good idea, again?’’ he asks.

Vision’s expression betrays nothing, but Tony thinks he’s cheating because he’s an android. ‘’I thought you’d like for Peter to be involved,’’ he says calmly. ‘’He is a prodigy and we can use his help on certain accounts. You can’t be expected to deliver everything by yourself.’’

‘’I know he’s a prodigy,’’ Tony says, crossing his arms. ‘’I _found_ him, remember? He’s a kid, you don’t burden him with things like these if it can be avoided! Let him help out when someone’s attacking, sure, let’s teach him, but the potential destruction of Earth? You don’t let kids help with stuff like that, Vision, not unless they – I don’t know, sneak into a spaceship or something. And considering he didn’t know about the spaceships, I doubt he would have!’’

‘’Uh, I’m glad to help,’’ Peter says, trying to smile politely but clearly confused by everything going on. ‘’You know, whenever I can. I’ll be safe, I promise.’’

‘’No, because those are promises you can’t make,’’ Tony tells him harshly, and turns back to Vision. ‘’This isn’t easy for me, okay? While I’m cursed, the kid doesn’t remember me. He’s not going to listen. If something happens to him, I’m going to call his aunt and set her loose on you.’’

Peter is blinking at him. ‘’Sorry, cursed?’’ he asks. ‘’I don’t – does that exist? I’m sorry, I’m not sure I understand.’’

Tony sighs. ‘’That’s alright, Pete. You shouldn’t have been involved. I’m cursed to not be remembered, so only a few particular individuals do, and I’m sorry to say you’re not one of them. So yes, curses are a thing, unfortunately for us scientists.’’

‘’But magic doesn’t exist, right?’’ Peter asks sceptically.

Of course that is the moment a portal opens, right on Tony’s left hand. A few of the orange sparks appear and fly against his skin, but it doesn’t hurt – it just prickles a bit on his skin and then disappears, and Tony smiles as Stephen first appears in the portal and almost bumps into him. Wong comes after him, shuffling to the side to avoid a collision. 

‘’You’re in the way,’’ Stephen says, but his grin is fond.

‘’Make me move, then,’’ Tony says, but he easily takes a step to his right. Not too much, of course, so he’s still close enough to Stephen. ‘’Stephen, tell the kid that curses exist and then tell Vision he shouldn’t have involved the kid at all.’’

‘’Kid?’’ Stephen asks, and looks at Peter. ‘’Ah. Vision involved Peter? And you haven’t maimed him yet? So you _do_ have some self-control.’’

‘’Barely,’’ Tony mutters, and he wants to make a joke that he can’t make with people around. He refrains himself and glowers at Vision again instead, who’s starting to look apologetic. Then he turns back to Peter, who’s starting to look like he wants to faint. ‘’Peter, this is Stephen Strange, and that’s Wong. Basically, they’re wizards who protect Earth from the stuff the Avengers can’t fight. Fun, right?’’

‘’Right,’’ Peter says dazedly. ‘’Hi, I’m Peter.’’

‘’Where are the other Avengers?’’ Wong asks.

Tony shrugs. ‘’On their way, presumably. You’re early, so they’ll be here soon. Steve isn’t the kind of guy who allows people to be late to meetings.’’

So they all take their seats. Tony sits next to Peter, who glances at him worriedly. ‘’Look, you’re going to forget who I am in mere seconds,’’ Tony murmurs to him while everyone else is talking. Stephen’s on his right side, but Tony can feel his arm shift to lay against Tony’s. ‘’Don’t worry about it, it’s natural.’’

‘’Who were you to me?’’ Peter asks. ‘’Will I remember you again?’’

It’s so like Peter to care about things like these. There is no reason to even think about Tony at all, or to worry about him. Yet, he knows that once upon a time, the man sitting beside him must’ve been important in one way or another. 

‘’We’re working on that,’’ Tony answers. ‘’I’m staying at the Sanctum with the sorcerers, and we’ll find a way to solve the problem. It’s not something for you to worry about, alright? You’ll remember me if it works out, and if it doesn’t – well, then you won’t know either way.’’

Peter nods and turns to his phone, the screen lighting up under the table. Tony pretends not to notice and turns to Stephen instead. The sorcerer is talking to Vision, but his hand has shifted so as to rest on Tony’s arm. He moves his own arm so that he can take Stephen’s hand with his own and entwine them under the table. He feels Stephen squeeze it, and that helps.

The Avengers trickle in one by one. All of them give Tony an odd look, and he just holds Stephen’s hand during the introductions. It’s nothing he hasn’t seen before, but it gets more exhausting each time. Steve frowns and looks away; Natasha narrows her eyes before dismissing him; Rhodey has that neutral expression on his face that means he’s judging someone; Bruce smiles nervously and adjusts his glasses in the way that he means he’s afraid of being judged. Only Wanda smiles kindly at him and greets him by his name, and Tony thanks her.

Stephen’s thumb strokes over his hand, which is probably the only reason he remains seated. Stephen mainly talks to the Avengers about their progress, only asking Tony for specifics on the weapons he’d designed or the ships. Wong interjects sometimes, but Tony remains silent all through the discussion on what remains to be done or what else can be made to help them. 

It’s not usual for him to be this quiet, and he can feel Stephen frowning at him. ‘’Alright,’’ the sorcerer finally says as the debate falls back into its old patterns. ‘’I think we’ve discussed all we can. I will inform Master Minoru and Master Wright of what still needs to be done.’’

‘’Thank you for your time,’’ Steve says, shaking their hands. ‘’Master Strange, Master Wong, and uh – Mister.’’

‘’Yeah, that’s fine,’’ Tony mutters as he rises with everyone else and takes their hand too. His own hand is warm and clammy after having rested in Stephen’s for so long.

‘’Don’t let it get to you,’’ Stephen whispers as he turns and accepts Rhodey’s offered hand. Tony is next, but the blank look in Rhodey’s eyes as he watches him still hurts. Rhodey looks healthy as ever, though, confident and straight, and Tony can’t help but be glad that his friend is doing alright without him.

They’re just ready to go, he and the sorcerers, when a cry from Peter stops Tony in his tracks. ‘’Mr Stark?’’ the boy says, with a quick look at the Avengers who are leaving the room already. ‘’I just – I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I’ll try to remember you, alright? I promise.’’

‘’Hey, don’t do that,’’ Tony says, though his heart clenches with fondness for the messy-haired eager boy standing in front of him. ‘’How did you even remember, anyway?’’

Peter holds out his phone. There’s a note in it, with a slightly-blurry photograph of Tony taken right before the meeting started, and a summary of what he’d been told. _He is important, and you need to remember him_ , is the last line. Tony looks up and hugs Peter forcibly. Peter lets out a huff of air, surprised by the sudden embrace, but he doesn’t pull away.

Tony just holds onto him for a few long seconds before releasing the teenager. Peter smiles that lopsided grin and puts his phone back in his pocket. ‘’Take care, Mr Stark,’’ he says. Tony nods, and watches Peter run after the other Avengers.

‘’You can be proud of that boy,’’ Wong says kindly.

‘’I already was before,’’ Tony tells him, and follows him back to the Sanctum. It’s not even weird to end up in whole another place anymore; he’s gotten used by travelling by portal. He may not even want to use jets anymore to go anywhere – they’re kind of obsolete now. Those are the perks of dating a sorcerer, obviously.

Tony wants to follow Stephen as they enter the hall, but Wong stops him for a second, looking at him intently. ‘’Can I talk to you for a second?’’ he asks.

The question throws Tony for a loop, and he blinks, looking back to Stephen. The sorcerer seems equally surprised, and narrows his eyes at Wong. ‘’Sure,’’ Tony answers slowly. ‘’Just go, Stephen. I’ll catch up with you later.’’

Stephen hesitates for another second; then he nods and goes up the stairs. Tony turns back to Wong, who stares at him neutrally. ‘’I heard you’re dating Stephen now,’’ he says.

Tony sighs and crosses his arms. ‘’Alright, so he told you. Wong, you know me well enough by now. We’re friends, right? You know I’m not going to do anything to hurt Stephen.’’

‘’Not purposefully,’’ Wong admits. ‘’But you were in a committed relationship with a woman for a long time before you came here. I’m just trying to look out for him.’’

‘’What, a guy can’t be batting for both teams, now?’’ Tony asks, annoyed. ‘’Or is it that you think I’m still in love with Pepper? Because I’m not, you know. I’m not that much of an asshole. I like Stephen, and even if I hadn’t, he’d still be my friend and I’m not into playing with his feelings. So if you think I’m going to, what, leave at my earliest convenience? Then you’re dead wrong, because that man upstairs is kind, whip-smart, hilariously sarcastic and I’d give him the world, if I had it.’’

He stands still, breathing loudly for a few moments. Wong nods. ‘’Alright,’’ he says, and his lips tilt. ‘’That’s all I wanted to know. You deserve each other.’’

‘’Thanks, Wong,’’ Tony says, stilling. ‘’So can I –‘’

‘’I don’t want to know,’’ Wong says. ‘’I’m not coming upstairs for the coming two hours.’’

Tony grins, and skips up the stairs.

~*~

Stephen looks back when Tony enters his working room. ‘’What did Wong want?’’ he asks.

‘’Just wanted to know where the best donut shop in New York was,’’ Tony says flippantly and falls on Stephen’s couch. ‘’Hey, you done for tonight? You checked the globe, right?’’

‘’Yes, I finished before the meeting,’’ Stephen says. He doesn’t believe for one second that Wong wanted donuts – that man has whatever is the opposite of a sweet tooth – but he’ll let it slide. Honestly, he can probably guess what that conversation was about. ‘’And you?’’

Tony hums non-committedly. ‘’Needed to finish a draft, but I can do that later,’’ he says. ‘’Dum-E is holding the fort.’’

Stephen moves towards him, slowly sitting on the edge of the couch. Tony shifts his legs onto Stephen’s lap, instead. There’s a hole in his sock and Stephen just shakes his head at it, pulling it off, and consecutively the other sock too. ‘’That’s cold,’’ Tony complains, and he sits up a bit straighter. He pulls himself up by holding Stephen’s arm and kisses him.

Stephen shifts so that Tony can lean against him fully, and the other man does. He is warm and pliant, and Stephen nibbles at his lower lip. It’s unhurried and comfortable, and Stephen wants the moment to never end.

It does end, however, with Tony almost being on top of him, his dark brown eyes roaming over Stephen. ‘’I didn’t think anything good would come out of this,’’ the inventor says quietly, his fingers tracing lines on Stephen’s belly where his shirt is riding up. ‘’Being cursed, I mean. And here you are.’’

‘’You won’t always be cursed,’’ Stephen says, taking Tony’s hand and looking at him earnestly. ‘’Everyone will remember you, Tony. And I’ll still be here.’’

Tony’s smile is open, affectionate. It’s different from his usual snarky grin – neither kind is unwanted, but this kind of gesture makes Stephen want to never let go of him. Tony kisses him lightly on the left side of his mouth, and moves away before Stephen can fully catch his lips. ‘’I’m afraid of what’ll happen if we manage to lift the curse,’’ Tony admits suddenly. ‘’I just realized it today – what’s going to happen if Rhodey realizes? How are the Avengers going to react? Everyone will realize that they can get by without me on their own, and it’ll be fine. What if they don’t want me around, after that? What if they compare the situations, and decide they’re better off without me?’’

Tony’s gaze is heartbreakingly hurt. Stephen wraps his arms around him, kissing him gently. ‘’Someone once told me that the world isn’t made of what-ifs,’’ he says, tilting his lips. ‘’He was a bit of a stupid man, but he had his moments of wisdom, you see. Tony, you deserve to be remembered. Even if anyone would react like that – and I wholeheartedly believe they won’t – you will still have the Sanctum. You will still have me. Things will get better, you’ll see.’’

‘’There’s just so many complications,’’ Tony murmurs, but he does seem a bit comforted by the thought.

Stephen kisses his head full of brown waves. ‘’One thing at a time. Stop thinking so far ahead – I know that’s hard for you.’’

‘’Futurist,’’ the man snuggled into his chest protests.

Stephen nods sagely, even though Tony can’t see. ‘’But there’s nothing for you to do right now. So rest, and continue tomorrow. Doctor’s orders.’’

‘’Well, if the doctor says so,’’ Tony says, a teasing quality to his voice that’s muffled by the way he speaks into Stephen’s shirt. ‘’Your chest is comfy. I could sleep on it.’’

‘’I do have a wonderfully adept bed, you know,’’ Stephen says, raising his eyebrows. ‘’As glad as I am to be promoted to your teddy-bear, you could – well, spend the night. In my bed. If you’re amenable. After all, you’re comfortable, and – it’s easier and closer, and…’’

He falls silent. Tony sits up a bed straighter, his face dispassionate. ‘’It’s a whole flight of stairs towards my own room,’’ he says neutrally. ‘’And Dum-E has probably messed up my blankets – he plays with them, you know.’’

‘’For the blankets, then,’’ Stephen says, his heart hammering.

‘’For the blankets,’’ Tony agrees. ‘’Well, lead the way, won’t you, doctor Strange?’’

Stephen smiles, and kisses him again first.

~*~

The alarm clock chirps loudly, but the upside to being a sorcerer is that there’s an easy spell to make it shut up right away. Stephen groans as he snaps his finger at it and it goes silent. He shakes himself awake and looks to his side, softening immediately.

Tony is lying on his right, face smashed into his cushion as he lies on his belly. With one bare arm, he’s holding onto the pillow, almost cuddling it. Stephen watches his eyes flutter open. ‘’Stephen?’’ he says hoarsely, blinking.

‘’Go back to sleep,’’ Stephen says, and leans over to kiss him soundly. Tony isn’t fully prepared for it, and the kiss is somewhat clumsy. Stephen doesn’t mind; he enjoys the way Tony narrows his eyes at him as he leans away. He could get used to waking up like this, even if he doesn’t have the time to enjoy it properly right now.

‘’How can I go to sleep now?’’ Tony complains, making grabby hands. Stephen gets out of his way soon enough and puts on the first clothes of himself he can find. They’re still relatively clean. ‘’Why are you up? What time is it?’’

He turns back to watch Tony. The man is still awake, but only barely. He’s turned onto his side, the blanket partly falling away to reveal an uncovered tan chest and the faint light of an arc reactor. He watches Stephen with half-closed eyes. ‘’You’ll manage,’’ Stephen says. ‘’As for your other questions, it’s only six in the morning. I’ll be back by seven – I need to meet with Wright and Minoru. We can have breakfast then?’’

‘’Can’t, going to be at the Compound,’’ Tony murmurs. ‘’Uh – s’mthing with ships. Can’t remember.’’

Stephen huffs out a laugh and walks around the bed, pecking Tony’s cheek. ‘’I’ll come to see you when I can,’’ he says. ‘’Sleep well, Tony.’’

‘’Hmm,’’ Tony hums, but then his breathing evens out. Stephen watches him for a few moments longer before creating a portal and stepping through.

~*~

Waking up alone in Stephen’s bedroom is slightly disconcerting, especially considering the lingering heat of Stephen’s body has disappeared already. Still, Tony makes himself a cup of coffee, gathers his clothes, and tries not to feel like he’s doing the walk of shame down to his own room.

At least he doesn’t run into Wong. That would’ve been embarrassing.

He manages to talk Simeon into giving him breakfast with an excuse – he’s long lost the note with an explanation that Stephen had originally given him, and he’s not asking for another – and eats it within three minutes before he’s out of there again. Afterwards, he manages to find Master Brown and convince her to make him a portal to the Compound. In the Compound, he only has to find Vision and check out the ships.

That’s how he finds himself in the hangars, staring at the crafts meant to battle in space. It almost feels surreal – they’re beautiful, all stark lines and glinting paint, and they’re almost done. For the better, too; Tony has no idea how close Galactus is, but he starts itching more with each day passing. Only Stephen’s presence manages to ever make the threat go to the background of his mind.

But Stephen is busy, and they both have jobs to do. So he gets inside the ships to test if everything’s working correctly. There’s a great many weapons incorporated into them, and he obviously can’t test those. Most of them, he’d designed. Stark Industries was instrumental, too, and he doesn’t want to think about Pepper and Rhodey doing stuff like this. As long as their weapons are in their own hands – it’s fine. He’d just never wanted to bother them with this.

But hey, they don’t remember him, anyway. It’s hardly his fault they’ve fallen in with the Avengers. He can blame Rhodey, now.

He’s checking the second of the five ships when he hears his name being called out. He frowns at himself and powers down the ships. It’s powered by his arc reactors – he’d made them himself, as he’s still not comfortable with others possessing the knowledge. They’re necessary to power the weapons, though, and Tony’s not going to withhold information that can help them defeat Galactus.

‘’Vision?’’ he asks, as the android is waiting on him to climb out. ‘’What’s going on?’’

‘’We have some visitors,’’ Vision says. ‘’Didn’t FRIDAY alert you?’’

Tony takes his phone – it’d been on silent. There are a few notifications, yes, but he doesn’t open them, as Vision is probably going to tell him now anyway. ‘’Missed those. So, who are these mysterious visitors?’’

‘’The Guardians of the Galaxy,’’ the android informs him. ‘’With news and a request for you.’’

He frowns. He just wants to open his mouth as a familiar raccoon enters the hangar, grinning at him. ‘’Hey, Stark,’’ Rocket calls at him. ‘’Feel like upgrading another ship?’’

Tony sighs, but can’t help but grin as the entire group enters. Quill narrows his eyes, but seemingly has been told something of the situation beforehand, because he doesn’t say a word. Maybe he’s just displeased his ship, apparently, needs some work.

‘’I’m not sure you can afford me,’’ he remarks, walking up to them.

‘’I am Groot!’’ the tree says and goes back to gaming.

‘’How about we pay you back by saving your world?’’ Gamora says, tilting her head. ‘’Where’s the wizard? We know where Galactus is, and what he’s been doing.’’

Tony turns back to Vision. ‘’Can you let everyone know that there’s an emergency meeting?’’ he asks lightly. ‘’I’ll start working on that ship. No time to lose, after all.’’

‘’There really isn’t,’’ Mantis says worriedly. Tony smiles, but the knot in his belly tightens.

~*~

The Compound’s room is getting rather full. Stephen has brought Wright and Minoru with him, as that was the easier thing to do. They aren’t overly familiar with the Avengers, but all groups seem to be taking each other in stride. Stephen hasn’t had the chance to speak with Tony so far, but he can see the other’s worried gaze.

Seems like his day is only going downhill.

‘’He’s been feeding off other, desolate planets,’’ Quill is saying, pacing around the room. ‘’It means he has some energy, but it won’t be enough. He’s still heading straight towards Earth – there’s only one planet in his way before he reaches us. All of us combined have six ships – we can do a lot of damage with six ships, but only if we evade him. He’ll try to eat the energy out of them right away.’’

‘’That’s problematic,’’ Tony says, scowling. ‘’How are we going to destroy a being that eats energy, when we need energy to beat him?’’

‘’By making sure we confuse him,’’ Gamora says decidedly. ‘’We need to distract him, make sure he can’t focus on one ship at once.’’

Vision speaks up next. ‘’Arc reactors power these ships – they emit enough energy to distract him from Earth, for at least a bit. But the ships are too large to quickly avoid Galactus. We need something smaller if we need to confuse him, before he consumes the energy from the ships and we lose our chance to fight.’’

It’s silent for a few moments. Stephen can see Tony’s face when a realization dawns on him. ‘’No,’’ he says.

‘’Yes,’’ Tony fires back, determinedly.

‘’That would work,’’ Wong adds, looking apologetically at Stephen. ‘’The Iron Man suit – it’s swift and powerful. It could distract Galactus and get away before having its energy eaten. Does it work in space?’’

Tony raises his eyebrows. ‘’After the Battle of New York? I made sure it would.’’

Minoru takes a step forward, and the room falls silent. She doesn’t stop until she stands in front of Tony. With a swift movement, she waves his hand in front of him. The curse becomes visible to all in the room, for a single second.

Stephen hasn’t looked at its output for months, but once again, the amount of energy coming from Tony manages to surprise him. It’s astounding – it’s enough energy to light up a city for a month, and it’s all coming from one curse in a world-wide celebrity. One curse, strong enough to make all of mankind perpetually forget someone.

‘’He’ll be bait,’’ he says, both in wonder and hurt. ‘’The amount of energy radiating from Tony – he’s not going to be a distraction, he’s going to be bait. Galactus will be drawn to him as soon as he comes close.’’

Tony watches him, and for a moment, it’s as if only the two of them are in the room. Tony’s eyes are unwavering, but there’s a hint of softness and regret in the dark depths as well. Stephen knew full well the extent to which Tony would go to, in order to save Earth; he just didn’t think he’d have to test his own limits so soon.

‘’It’ll be dangerous,’’ Vision says. ‘’But Tony’s curse gives us a good chance at luring Galactus away. He’s not human, so Galactus will remember him. And the Iron Man suit is agile enough for him to do distract him while the others kill the creature.’’

‘’We can’t come,’’ Minoru informs him. ‘’We of the Sanctum – we can’t come to space. Not if we want to distract Galactus even more. Sorcerers of all kinds have a natural heightened output of energy. We have to stay on Earth and help out here.’’

The knowledge stings. Stephen was just discussing this point in their meeting, before the Guardians had come. It was painful before, when he didn’t know what their strategy was going to be. But to put Tony as bait in space, and to remain on Earth? His chest tightens.

He can feel Wong’s eyes on him, and he knows that this is the moment to show that he is still the Sorcerer Supreme foremost. He has to put his trust in Tony, and he has to put his faith in everyone else who is determined to defeat Galactus. All of them know the stakes, and none of them will allow them to lose. They need to win this – and if this is the best way…

Most of all, he has to trust that this is the right choice to make, no matter how much his heart is screaming at him to take Tony in his arms and not let go. Stephen once stood before Dormammu, countless times, with the offer to sacrifice himself and the hope that it would end in his favour. Tony will not do anything less.

Stephen locks eyes with Tony, and nods once.


	30. Chapter 30

‘’Don’t you have about twenty different things you need to be doing?’’ Tony asks, a humorous tone in his voice. Still, he feels a bit concerned for Stephen, even as he focuses on connecting the arc reactor to the Guardians’ ship. It’s a better source of energy than the one they had before.

Stephen leans against the cold metal, watching him work. ‘’Probably,’’ he murmurs. He doesn’t elaborate, and continues watching Tony. The worry gnaws.

‘’Hey,’’ he says, rising. His knees protest but he assuages the burden by leaning against Stephen. He still revels in the knowledge that he’s allowed to, anyway. ‘’It’s going to work out fine, right? We have a solid plan now, one that will work. I’m too quick to let myself be caught.’’

‘’Sometimes, even the best plans don’t work out the way they are supposed to,’’ Stephen reminds him calmly, but his hands rest lightly on Tony’s middle. ‘’I just got you – I know you are the best man for the job, and I trust you. I just wish I could come with you and assist you.’’

‘’Stephen, you’ve assisted plenty. Are you kidding? We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you and the Sanctum. I’m not going to leave.’’

Stephen nods, and Tony can feel him shuffle against him. ‘’I can’t stop imagining Galactus sucking all life from Earth,’’ he whispers. ‘’All life on Earth, losing their power, their souls – all lights dying out. Mankind, without man. And then I think of you, alone in space, drifting without power.’’

‘’I’ve done it before, I can do it again,’’ Tony says, and turns his head so that he can kiss Stephen’s cheek. ‘’Hey, look at me. It won’t come to that – I’ve fallen out of space before, and I was caught before. I know you’ll be the one to catch me, should it come to that. I trust you more than anyone, alright?’’

Stephen doesn’t return Tony’s kiss; he just looks down at him in worry. Tony gets what Stephen is afraid of – he’s had so many nightmares himself. Space isn’t his favourite place to be, but it’s where he needs to be to defeat Galactus, so he’ll be there. And afterwards, he’ll return to Stephen’s arms and spend whatever time he can there. They’ll work on dissolving his curse and they’ll kiss and share a bed and make witty jokes and love. He’s never been more certain of anything, and he can see it so clearly that it’s hard to believe it won’t be true.

‘’I was here, during the Battle of New York,’’ Stephen says suddenly. ‘’I was working in the hospital when the news came in. I was so, so afraid, and all these people kept coming in, heavily injured and dead from things I’d never seen before. I wanted to leave, but I couldn’t just abandon these people. So all I could do, even when I didn’t believe, was to put my faith in a group of heroes I’d never believed in before. And you managed – I saw you fall, from the news. I didn’t understand, not really, not until I came here. Not until I faced Dormammu, time and time again.’’

‘’You never told me about Dormammu,’’ Tony tells him, and he wants to know, but he’s afraid of what he might hear. ‘’I’ve heard snippets, from Wong, and Master Brown, mostly. But I’ve never heard the entire thing.’’

Stephen takes a sharp breath and his eyes move to somewhere over Tony’s head – and even if he turned, he’s sure they wouldn’t be looking at the same thing. ‘’You wouldn’t remember,’’ Stephen says. ‘’Dormammu came to destroy Earth. He would’ve managed, but I wore the Time Stone then. I turned back time until I could convince him to leave – but it took many tries. I lost count, after a while. I don’t even remember the pain – I just remember waking up after dying. After a while, you become numb to it.’’

Tony pulls Stephen towards him and kisses him fiercely. ‘’You unbelievably stupid, brave, wonderful doctor,’’ he says, and kisses him again. ‘’It won’t be the same. I promise, okay, I promise to you that I’ll come back, and that you’ll never have to do anything like that again. Not alone – not without me. Please, Stephen. Don’t leave me, and I won’t leave you.’’

He doesn’t notice he’s trembling until Stephen presses him against his chest so tightly that it becomes noticeable. They’re both quivering, breathing unsteadily, just holding each other.

They can draw strength from each other by being afraid together. Tony doesn’t want to ever lose this support, this mutual understanding of the horrors they have to endure in order to do what they do. The sacrifices they make, both of their lives and of their fragile sanity.

They cling to each other, and in doing so, they cling to the promises they’ve both made.

~*~

Everyone is gathered in one of the meeting rooms of the Sanctum, a bigger one. 

Wright regards the sorcerers surrounding him silently. Minoru, besides him, is quietly chatting with Zhao. Stephen and Tony have long composed themselves before the meeting. The Masters from the New York Sanctum are there as well, frowning. Only Master Brown manages to keep a straight face.

‘’It’s going to be our duty to keep contact with the ships,’’ Stephen tells all of them, looking at the familiar faces, all so solemn. ‘’We can’t come to space, but we can assist the people that are going. There are weapons on Earth that will be able to hit Galactus, and we are the ones that say when to fire and where to aim. Use no magic, under any circumstances; it’ll only make Galactus more powerful and focus on Earth instead of the ships. Tony will take a ship to space with the Avengers and then distract him so the ships and we can hit. We are here to make sure our weapons do not to hit our own ships, and to keep the crew in space updated. We also have to keep them updated about Tony, as they will forget him – we need him to distract Galactus and we can, under no circumstances, allow the crew in space to attack him. That is where the Masters come into action.’’

‘’Aren’t multiple distractions better?’’ Wright asks, wearing a thoughtful frown as he looks around the room. ‘’If we have a few sorcerers on the ship, we can make it harder for Galactus to focus on one entity. It would certainly put less of a strain on Tony, and the sorcerers can stop them from going after him immediately without having to keep reminding them over a communication device.’’

‘’Letting sorcerers go onto the ships only puts more people in danger,’’ Master Wong points out.

‘’Not that I’m agreeing with Alexander, but it does raise a point,’’ Tony says. ‘’How certain are we that Galactus is going to be focusing on the ships? I don’t mind being bait, but if he’s only going to go after me, it might be difficult to pull this off.’’

Stephen regards Tony. As far as he knows, Master Wright isn’t necessarily close to Tony – but apparently enough to call him by his first name, when he doesn’t do the same for a great many Masters in his own Sanctum. Something close to jealousy stirs in him, but he ignores it. Tony wants him – he believes that fully, now. 

‘’Vision assured me the energy from the ships would be sufficient to draw his attention, despite your curse,’’ he answers.

‘’I can make a few potions,’’ Moretti says. ‘’Lydia and I have been working with some new ideas. They can be effectively used as bombs – we can fire them from here, or add them to the existing weapons for some extra effect.’’

‘’Master Zhao can help you with that,’’ Minoru states calmly. ‘’He enjoys making potions.’’

Master Zhao grins toothlessly, and Stephen nods. ‘’I’m not sure what else remains to be done. Stark Industries continues to deliver weapons, but the ships are effectively done. Only the Guardians’ ship needs a few more adjustments, and those will be finished soon, too. We have to remain alert and expect to fight any time – know where you are supposed to be and with whom you are supposed to be in contact. We have six ships in total, and I’ve appointed some Masters to each ship. The others are supposed to stay in touch with the forces on the ground.’’

Minoru nods easily. ‘’Make sure to use as little magic as you can, during the attack. Make sure you know where everyone is and that everyone is safe. We have a duty to Earth.’’

‘’Is everything clear to everyone?’’ Stephen asks. The room remains silent, and he nods. ‘’Don’t fear, Sorcerers. The Sanctums stand together, and we will defeat this evil like we’ve defeated everything that has come before.’’

It seems to comfort everyone, even if it’s just a bit. Stephen is just as worried, but he is the Sorcerer Supreme, and he isn’t allowed to show any of it. 

Everyone slowly leaves to return to their duties.

~*~

Wong stops Stephen before he wants to leave. The majority of other people have already left – he can see Tony waiting for him, but the other man leaves as soon as he sees that Stephen has other people to talk to first.

‘’Are you going to be alright?’’ his friend asks him worriedly. ‘’We’ve both been busy, but I am still here, Stephen. I know the situation with Tony must worry you.’’

‘’It does,’’ Stephen admits. ‘’But I trust the Sanctum, and I trust Tony. This is our best chance, and Tony would smack me if I didn’t allow us to take it.’’

Wong grins. ‘’Maybe he is good for you, after all,’’ he admits. Stephen smiles wryly.

Minoru comes in between them. ‘’Am I interrupting?’’ she asks. 

‘’Not really,’’ Stephen says, sending Wong a fond look. It’s thoughtful of him to care; maybe he’s turned around on the whole idea of dating, after all. Stephen likes to think that having Tony only makes him a better Master; he still spends a lot of time with his tasks, but now he has someone who fully understands him on the side. Just talking about his day already helps with the tension, and any other activities – well, they only benefit him even more.

‘’I’m not sure Wright is ready for an attack of any kind,’’ she says, sceptically. ‘’He’s been in his own Sanctum often, but I talked to a few of his Masters, and they say he’s been locking himself up even more. Wright wasn’t very outgoing before he was cursed, but he’s been so unsociable that it’s unlike him. What task did you have in mind for him, during the attack?’’

‘’I was actually considering for him to be in contact with one of the ships,’’ Stephen says, sharing a look with Wong. ‘’But it’s not merely my decision, of course, I did mean to talk this over with you and Wright. I haven’t seen anything wrong with him.’’

Minoru sighs. ‘’Perhaps I’m seeing things that aren’t there,’’ she says. ‘’Perhaps his illness changed him in ways that can’t be undone.’’

‘’We’ll talk with him and see what he wants,’’ Stephen says gently. ‘’Wright knows the stakes as much as we do, Master Minoru.’’

She nods. ‘’Of course. Master Zhao just ran off – I will find him and return to Hong Kong. We will keep in touch, Master Strange.’’

‘’Of course,’’ Stephen says, allowing her to pass. He watches her for a few seconds as she leaves before he turns to Wong, who has his eyes narrowed. ‘’What are you thinking, Wong? She does seem worried about Wright’s involvement.’’

‘’She knows him better than we do. Either she truly worries about his mental state, or she doesn’t want him involved.’’

‘’Or both,’’ Stephen notes, and cannot help but frown and look towards the door that is now closed. ‘’We can hardly keep Wright out of this matter – Minoru knows better than to try. It must be worry, simply. Maybe we should just keep an eye on Wright, for her benefit.’’

Wong nods slowly, but he doesn’t seem convinced.

~*~

‘’There you are!’’ Minoru says, as she spots them down the hall. ‘’Mr Stark, has Master Zhao been trailing you? He seems awfully fond of you.’’

Tony smiles, sharing a look with Zhao. ‘’Yeah, we’ve been catching up. We did that really quickly, considering we don’t even speak the same language. Besides, it’s not like much of the situation has changed. I’m still cursed, he’s still a Master in the Hong Kong Sanctum. Same old, same old.’’

Her lips tilt as she regards him. ‘’Well, not exactly the same, are they?’’ she asks. ‘’I didn’t have the chance to talk to you earlier, but I understand that congratulations are in order regarding you and Master Strange. The two of you certainly took your time figuring that one out.’’

‘’What?’’ Tony asks. ‘’He told you?’’

He knows Stephen has told the other Masters of the Sanctum, as he’d always meant to, but he wasn’t aware that Minoru knew too. She waves it away, her eyes twinkling. ‘’No, he didn’t tell me. I had a feeling it might happen the day I saw you two the first time. And I’m more observant than you might think, Mr Stark. I didn’t become Master of the Sanctum as young as I was for no reason.’’

Master Zhao says something, and it saves Tony from having to think of something to say. It’s odd to think that Minoru had truly seen it coming at a time Tony was still so desperately missing Pepper. Maybe he’d gravitated around Stephen the entire time – they’d certainly become friends early on, and their closeness had only grown from then on.

Moreover, she’s a sorcerer. Tony doesn’t even want to know how they figure out stuff all the time. ‘’We need to return,’’ Minoru apologizes to him. ‘’Have a nice evening, Mr Stark.’’

‘’Yeah, you too,’’ Tony waves at them until they disappear through the portal. He finds himself wandering to Stephen’s private room, but Stephen must’ve been held up. There’s so many things people want to discuss with him; with both of them, actually. 

He finds Stephen’s phone resting on the desk, and he turns it on. Queen starts playing, softly, and he knows the lyrics well enough by now to sing along. He slowly starts moving along to the wailing guitars. He used to dance along to AC/DC often enough in his workshop, before the curse, and the memory comes back to him.

_God knows, God knows I want to break free._

‘’I’ve fallen in love,’’ he sings, just as Stephen enters. The sorcerer looks rather amused as Tony points at him and dances closer to him, pulling him in. Stephen goes along easily, resting his hands on Tony’s hips as he swings along. ‘’I’ve fallen in love for the first time, and this time I know it’s for real.’’

Tony quietly sings along the words to the song in Stephen's ear, straining to reach even while the sorcerer steadily holds him. They sway together easily, Tony forcing Stephen to make a twirl in the middle of the song. It fails, Stephen bumping more into Tony's arm than he actually dances. He grins as Stephen presses him close, and feels his chest rumble with joy. Tony never wants to let go, and burrows his face inside Stephen's shoulder even as they move together gently, not ready for the song to end. He could stay here forever, and not worry about anything else ever again.

_I can't get over the way you love me like you do._

Stephen laughs, and it’s low and real, and Tony can’t help but put that smile on his own, kissing him sweetly. His toes curl as Stephen’s beard itches against his own, but it’s perfect and joyful and Tony has never wanted anything more than just to remain in this moment.

Well – maybe he wants to move forward, just to see how many more moments like these he can get. ‘’You’re a sap,’’ Stephen tells him. ‘’I’d never taken you for one.’’

Tony hums. ‘’How do you think I ever got into any relationship at all? Wooing, Stephen. The wooing is important.’’

‘’Well, consider me wooed,’’ Stephen whispers, his breath ghosting over Tony’s lips just as he closes the distance again.

‘’Just my intention,’’ Tony says triumphantly. His nose is still touching Stephen’s, and they’re still softly swaying, even though the song has ended. ‘’The perfect date, isn’t it? A little music, some dancing, kissing under the light of your old-fashioned lamps. You know, after this whole crisis is over, I’m going to take you to some conference and show you off. You’re going to be bored out of your mind but I’ll be pleased to see the jealous look on people’s faces. And afterwards, I’ll take you to the worst movie I can find. We’re not going to catch anything of it, because we’re going to whisper all throughout it and annoy everyone who’s watching it as well. We’ll leave early, and I’ll buy you some ice cream. What’s your favourite?’’

‘’Pistachio,’’ Stephen says easily.

‘’Gross. Alright, I’ll buy you your pistachio ice cream and we’ll take a walk in the park. It’s going to be so disappointing because there’ll be all kinds of teens hanging around and it’s going to be too cold. But right there – right there, in the middle of that park, I’m going to dance with you again. Sounds good?’’

Stephen kisses him, his hand resting on Tony’s jaw so he can’t move away, even if he would want to. ‘’Sounds perfect,’’ he says, nuzzling his nose. ‘’But I reserve the right to take you on a date first. A real date – I’ve wanted to do that for so long.’’

‘’Why do you get to choose the first date?’’ Tony says, but he’s laughing. ‘’I think we should do my thing first. As you heard, I’ve planned the whole thing out already.’’

‘’And you think mine isn’t?’’ Stephen asks, and his mouth is close to Tony’s ear now. Close enough for the warm breath to cause him to shiver. ‘’I’m going to take you all over the world. Everything you’ve wanted to see and never have had time for – we’re going to do that. We can go to places when they’re still closed – walk around in a museum when there’s no one else. All I’ll be looking at is you, of course, because I’ve never been able to focus on anything else. I’m going to show you the darkest parts of a jungle, and the highest top of the mountain. I’m going to show you the sunset on a beach no one can go, and we’ll visit caves that no one has discovered yet. I’ll show you the world, just to know I can still amaze you.’’

Tony stills for a moment and then almost jumps Stephen. There’s a passion that Stephen always manages to unlock in him, a desperation that he didn’t even know was there. But that’s what Stephen does; he finds the hidden parts in Tony and reveals them; and he makes Tony ache for him to be closer, always.

He’s never quite felt like this. With Pepper, his love had been a controlled and tamed thing; always burning bright but always steadily, comforting. With Stephen, there’s two sides to what he feels. The control is there – it’s there in moments when they need comfort and silence, when they need understanding and security. The thing is that Stephen also manages to make Tony long for adventure with him, to never stand still and always move forward – never to look back, and always keep going, hand in hand.

He loves Stephen, whole-heartedly and irrevocably, and he’s never felt it so keenly as he does right now.

‘’You win,’’ he murmurs against Stephen’s lips. 

Stephen merely kisses him in answer, and it’s all the answer Tony needs.

~*~

Stephen is woken by the incessant beeping of a phone. It’s not his – it’s not remotely close to his own annoying beeps, which he knows well enough by now. He opens his eyes to find Tony’s phone buzzing. He’s lying on the couch, Tony’s sleeping body draped half over him. He grunts and softly moves Tony out of the way so he can catch the phone.

There’s an alert from FRIDAY. He freezes as he sees what it’s for.

‘’Wake up,’’ he says, shaking Tony awake. He shifts Tony away before the other man can properly wake and summons his Cloak to him. ‘’Tony, wake up, it’s Mordo – the sensor, they were triggered!’’

Tony falls off the couch as he hears that piece of information. ‘’Go, go,’’ he says hurriedly, standing up as if he wasn’t deeply asleep mere seconds ago.

‘’Stay here,’’ he tells Tony. ‘’Guard the Sanctum – we’re better equipped to handle him. Tell the first Master you see to join me.’’

With that, he creates a portal into the library on a good guess. Wong is indeed sitting there, still, even so late at night. He frowns as he sees Stephen appear. ‘’What’s wrong?’’ he asks, rising immediately.

‘’Mordo,’’ Stephen says. ‘’Coming?’’ 

With that, he creates a portal to the area where the alarm had come from. He doesn’t even have to look at Wong to know the answer.

Together, they run through the portal, ready for anything that might be thrown at them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should've put a warning for the amount of fluff.


	31. Chapter 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: there is a character death in this chapter. It's not very detailed, but I thought I should put a warning just to be sure.

They enter a private penthouse, or at least that’s Stephen’s first thought as he looks around him. He doesn’t have much time to investigate where he is; he runs towards the first door that has a strip of light coming from under it and breaks into it.

Mordo is there, by himself. There’s a woman sleeping on the couch, and she starts awake at the loud sound of the door breaking in.

‘’Strange,’’ Mordo growls, and takes a step back. ‘’When will you stop interfering?’’

The woman screams, falling of the couch and crawling back, pressing her back against the wall. ‘’Wong,’’ Stephen says, not daring to look away from Mordo. Wong understands, anyway, and with a snap of his fingers, the woman falls back into a magic-induced sleep.

‘’We’ll stop when you turn back those curses,’’ Wong says sharply.

‘’These people deserve everything that I am doing to them and more!’’ Mordo yells. ‘’Once, you would have understood that. But the Ancient One has muddled your brains, and now you think you know what’s right. This woman – you know her? She invested in a company that pollutes our planet. Destruction, all because she wanted to get back more money for whatever she gave. She doesn’t deserve remembrance, Strange. Neither does your friend, the war-monger Stark.’’

‘’Tony’s worthier than you’ve ever been,’’ Stephen says, his heart beating fast as he pulls up his whips. They sizzle where they meet the ground. ‘’And you’re going to release those curses.’’

‘’Never,’’ Mordo vows, and his lips tighten. ‘’What are you going to do about it, doctor? You have me right here, outnumbered. I won’t come willingly, and you once told me you didn’t want to hurt anyone. Make up your mind.’’

Stephen wants to do a lot. Mordo’s words make him angry and anxious, and he wants to help Tony in any way he can. But he’s a doctor; he doesn’t want to hurt anyone if it can be avoided. Not even if it’s Mordo – and that’s a choice he has to make.

Lose his own principles, or avenge Tony’s curse.

‘’Stephen,’’ Wong says, voice low.

Lose what he stands for as a doctor or neglect the man who came to him for help. Ultimately – break an oath he swore he would forever uphold, or hurt the man he cares about most? There is only once choice he can make, of course – he has to help Tony, and that means he has to take in Mordo. Even if that means hurting another human being, someone who used to be his friend. Mordo is not a demon or a sprite, and Stephen doesn’t necessarily want to hurt him. And yet, he will have to.

‘’Time’s up,’’ Mordo says him, and the portal behind him appears immediately. Stephen takes a step forward in alarm. ‘’Weak as ever, Strange. Weak as ever.’’

He strikes at the portal with one of his whips, but Mordo is already gone. He made up his mind too late, the few seconds of doubt interfering with his duty as a Sorcerer Supreme. ‘’Damn this,’’ Stephen says, falling to his knees. ‘’Wong, is she –‘’

Wong’s sitting beside the woman, finger on his pulse. He’s doing it clumsily, but Stephen doesn’t have the heart to correct him. ‘’She’s fine,’’ he says. ‘’Cursed, but healthy. What were you doing, Stephen? We don’t have enough opportunities to catch Mordo, and you just let one slip!’’

‘’He knows me,’’ Stephen mutters, looking down at his scarred hands. He loathes them, he loathes himself, he loathes everything that ever brought him so far – so close to breaking his oath. He hasn’t thought about that promise in a long time. Mordo must have known it would make him hesitate, and give him the time to escape. Or Stephen is just a predictable fool, always torn between two promises.

Wong crouches in front of him, grabbing his shoulders tightly. ‘’You have to make up your mind,’’ he insists. ‘’We can’t catch Mordo without you. He is one man, Stephen – one man who hurts others out of his own beliefs. Is it wrong to shoot a man in the foot who’s going to shoot several others in the chest?’’

‘’It doesn’t matter,’’ Stephen explodes. ‘’It’s still _questionable_!’’

‘’Because we have to do questionable things to save the world!’’ Wong returns.

Stephen shakes his head. ‘’I’m not a policeman,’’ he mutters. ‘’I’m not even a hero. I’m here to defend the world from – from other things. From beings like Galactus. Mordo was my friend, and he wasn’t evil. He is angry, and misguided. And for a second there, I wanted to hurt him so badly for doing this to Tony, alright? How can I be a doctor if I want to hurt people – not to stop them, but just so they can hurt just as bad?’’

‘’Because you’re human,’’ Wong tells him gently. ‘’I know you liked Mordo – I liked him, too. I was here when he first came to the Sanctum, you know. Don’t you think that I miss who he used to be? Good and evil are not two opposites, Stephen. Good people do evil things, and evil people do good things, and sometimes, they’re a little bit in between. And as a doctor, you sometimes have to choose between patients. I know you must have. So which ones did you go for?’’

‘’The ones with the best chance,’’ Stephen tells him, thinking back to the day he first had to make such a decision. It’d been a little girl’s life in the balance, and her mother’s. He’d been the only doctor skilled enough to save them – but he only had time for one operation.

He’d saved the mother, because her injuries were less severe. The girl – well, she probably wouldn’t have made it even with his help. The other doctors who operated on her lost her only twenty minutes into surgery. The woman would’ve died without Stephen’s help, for certain, but there was a major chance she would recover with it. So he’d helped her.

She’d cursed him, when she woke up. She’d cried and she’d screamed at him, and Stephen always wondered if he’d made the right choice, that day. If he shouldn’t have saved the life that was so infinitely precious to the mother. He wonders if the girl would have yelled, if he’d let her mother die, or if she would’ve stared at him. Perhaps they both would’ve been dead, buried within the week to leave a grieving husband and father.

He doesn’t think he could have ever done anything else. 

Wong slowly nods. ‘’Tony deserves this shot more than Mordo does, right now,’’ his friend says. ‘’We don’t know what Mordo is going to do, but we know Tony will do his best to help out as he’s always done. It’s our job to help, no matter how hard it may be, Stephen.’’

He nods, and rises from the floor. Just as he brushes the dust from his pants, Master Brown comes inside, Vision floating behind her. ‘’Tony called you back-up,’’ she says. ‘’Mordo’s gone?’’

‘’I messed up,’’ Stephen tells them. ‘’Hello, Vision. Nice of you to join us. I’m sorry it was for nothing.’’

‘’I’m glad to be of assistance,’’ Vision says, and turns his gaze towards the woman. ‘’Is she unconscious?’’

‘’That’s my fault,’’ Wong admits. ‘’She was screaming. She has been cursed, however. I didn’t know that Mordo was cursing others – he hasn’t done this to just Tony?’’

‘’Apparently,’’ Stephen says, crouching next to her, and turning her into a better position for breathing. ‘’I didn’t know. It will be a while before she will be truly forgotten, but there’s nothing we can do now. What should we do with her?’’

Vision appears next to him. ‘’Actually, you did know that other people are being cursed,’’ he says apologetically. ‘’Mr Stark and you put out an ad for everyone who has been cursed to come to Avengers Compound, since I am not affected by the curse. I have currently twenty-one celebrities in the Avengers Compound who have an awful lot of trouble remembering each other. It is, in all respects, utter madness. I assume this woman will be number twenty-two.’’

‘’All celebrities?’’ Stephen repeats in disbelief. ‘’Why – how come you never told us that?’’

‘’I did, you merely forgot,’’ Vision responds dryly.

‘’We have to keep more notes,’’ Brown says.

Stephen shakes his head, and looks at the woman. He vaguely recognizes her – he thinks she’s some sort of actress, perhaps. She has the face for being one. She’s not that old, and Stephen aches to think that people will miss her, somewhere. She must have family; or maybe a relationship. They are going to forget all about her. She doesn’t deserve that, even if she’s done something wrong. Nobody deserves this.

‘’Why celebrities?’’ he mutters.

Wong shrugs. ‘’Maybe Mordo only thinks celebrities have done the things he so disagrees with?’’ Stephen sighs, but he doesn’t have a better answer. He looks towards Vision.

‘’Can you bring her to the Compound, then?’’ he asks. ‘’Get me to visit, soon. Perhaps Tony, too – maybe he’d like to meet some people in the same boat as him. I can spell myself to remember a few of them and I will know at least a few more details. Perhaps Minoru or Wright, too.’’

‘’Certainly,’’ Vision says. He lifts the woman with ease, and then looks back to Master Brown. ‘’Could I get a lift back, Master Brown?’’

Brown looks to Stephen, and he nods. She leaves with Vision, leaving Stephen and Wong in an empty apartment. There’s hardly any evidence of what happened earlier, and it feels odd. They were so close to getting to Mordo, and Stephen ruined the chance.

What is he even going to tell Tony?

He shakes his head. ‘’Let’s get back to the Sanctum,’’ he says tiredly.

~*~

He doesn’t have to tell Tony at once. The man sees his face, sighs, and takes Stephen by the hand. ‘’I messed up,’’ Stephen whispers to him.

‘’It’ll be fine,’’ Tony tells him, and helps him out of the Cloak and his clothes. Stephen’s cold without them, even as he goes to lie under his covers. Only when Tony joins him, tightly pressing against him, he feels himself warming. ‘’We’ll talk tomorrow. It’s been a long day.’’

Stephen nods in the cover of dark, and lies with his head between Tony’s arc reactor and his head, his nose nuzzling the neck. He presses a kiss against the soft skin and falls asleep at once.

~*~

Tony’s woken up by a loud banging on the door. ‘’Stephen!’’ he can hear Wong. Tony shakes his head and looks to the man beside him, softly snoring. He must be out cold – Stephen is a light sleeper on the best of days.

Tony runs a hand through his own hair, gets out of bed, and opens the door for Wong. ‘’What’s wrong?’’ he whispers furiously. ‘’He’s exhausted, can’t you –‘’

‘’I know,’’ Wong says, crossing his arms. He looks equally tired. ‘’I wouldn’t do this if it weren’t necessary. An accomplice from Mordo is here, and he wants to tell everything, but he’ll only talk to Stephen.’’

‘’What?’’ Tony exclaims loudly, and behind him, Stephen shoots up.

‘’What?’’ Stephen echoes, confused.

Tony takes his own clothes from the floor and throws Stephen’s to him. The Cloak already flies towards him, ready for duty. Tony half-heartedly wonders if the thing ever sleeps before returning to more important thoughts.

‘’An accomplice of Mordo’s,’’ Wong repeats. ‘’He will only talk to you.’’

That wakes Stephen properly. ‘’When?’’ he asks, pulling on a pair of pants.

‘’Now.’’

‘’Right,’’ Stephen says. ‘’Alright, inform Minoru and Wright. Who else knows?’’

‘’Master Haman opened the door,’’ Wong says. ‘’Master Moretti assisted. That’s it.’’

Stephen nods and almost flies out of the door. Tony follows him and Wong, even as Wong calls to Stephen where exactly they’re waiting. They by-pass the kitchens and run right into the room where they’d held Price before his escape. 

Master Haman and Master Moretti are sitting there, solemn faces and dark eyes. In between them is a man of about Tony’s age, if he had to guess, with silver hair and a pale face. His eyes dart from Wong to Stephen, barely even taking notice of Tony. He doesn’t mind; as long as the man will talk, he doesn’t care.

‘’You worked with Mordo?’’ Stephen says, his voice low and serious. By looking at him, you wouldn’t have guessed he woke up mere minutes ago. 

‘’My name is Samuel Braxton,’’ the man says, his accent immediately striking Tony. ‘’I joined Karl Mordo five months ago. I came from the London Sanctum.’’

‘’Tell me everything,’’ Stephen urges. ‘’Why have you come?’’

‘’I found something,’’ Braxton says, and looks around the room. ‘’Something that I don’t think Mordo knows about. I will only talk to you, Master Strange. I don’t want to have this on my conscience – not if it’s what I think it is.’’

‘’Worse than cursing people who haven’t done anything wrong?’’ Stephen asks, and Tony meets his gaze for a single moment before the sorcerer focuses on Braxton again. ‘’Why only me?’’

‘’Just let me tell you,’’ the man pleads. ‘’Master Strange, I promise. I’ll tell you, but just you.’’

‘’You have to stay here,’’ Stephen tells him. ‘’I’m going to discuss this matter with my Masters. Master Haman, Master Moretti, would you mind watching him?’’

Haman nods resolutely as Stephen leaves the room. Tony and Wong follow after him. They’re all silent for a moment. Tony leans against the wall, regarding Stephen. ‘’You’re going to talk to him, aren’t you?’’ Tony says anxiously. ‘’He’s going to have answers.’’

‘’We can’t leave Stephen alone,’’ Wong says. ‘’There’s rules in place for these kinds of things – a sorcerer is dangerous. We don’t know if he means to harm Stephen.’’

‘’Stephen is the Sorcerer Supreme,’’ Tony argues. ‘’He can be trusted to hold his own, don’t you think? What if we just waited outside? We don’t have to hear – Stephen will tell us afterwards, right?’’

Stephen grimaces. ‘’The meaning of the rule is twofold,’’ he says. ‘’It’s to make sure that I’m not harmed or cursed, but it’s also to make sure I treat him fairly. It’s age-old Sanctum conduct, Tony. I can’t go against it. No one was ever alone with Price either, when we held him.’’

‘’Master Minoru wouldn’t mind,’’ Tony protests.

‘’Well, I’m not Minoru, am I?’’ Stephen says sharply, crossing his arms. ‘’Just – I’ll see if he can be swayed. Wong, did you inform Minoru and Wright yet? They need to know about this as well.’’

‘’I’ll get them,’’ Wong says, and creates a portal. When he’s gone, Stephen takes Tony’s hands, slowly rubbing them.

‘’I know you’re frustrated,’’ Stephen says, kissing both of the hands. ‘’I’m frustrated, too. But he’s here now, and we have time. If Braxton talks – if we know what Mordo’s planning, in the long run – we’ll take him. We’re going to catch him. I let him walk, yesterday. There was a chance, and I didn’t take it. I promise you it won’t happen again.’’

‘’You let him walk?’’ Tony repeats, growing cold. ‘’Why?’’

Stephen sighs. ‘’He’s not going to come without force. I don’t want to harm people, Tony. He used to be my friend, and if we’re going to make him release your spell, we’re going to have to convince him the hard way. I froze, and I’m sorry.’’

Tony shakes his head and releases his hands from Stephen’s. ‘’I’ve been cursed for months now, Stephen,’’ he stresses. ‘’I – I hate this. Look – alright, we’ll talk about this later. I know my curse isn’t top priority right now, with everything that’s going on with Galactus. And I’ve always agreed that the safety of Earth comes first. But I want you to be certain of what we’re trying to achieve here. Because if I see the bastard that cursed me? I’m going to blast him in the face, if I have to. And I won’t regret that.’’

‘’I know,’’ Stephen says.

Tony waits for him to continue, but the arrival of Wong, Alexander Wright and Minoru interrupts them. ‘’Someone defected from Mordo?’’ Minoru says sharply, in lieu of a greeting.

‘’He wants to talk to just me,’’ Stephen answers.

‘’I don’t see how that’s a problem,’’ Minoru says, and Tony exchanges a look with Stephen. 

‘’There’s rules in place for that kind of thing,’’ Alexander says, sharpening his gaze at Stephen. ‘’Have you talked to him yet? Who is he?’’

‘’He’s from your Sanctum,’’ Wong says. ‘’A man by the name of Samuel Braxton. He hasn’t said much yet.’’

‘’Samuel?’’ Alexander asks quietly, his shoulders slumping. ‘’Samuel has always been a decent sorcerer – headstrong, but a good friend of mine, when I wasn’t Master yet. Do you think it’s possible for me to talk to him?’’

‘’Maybe he’ll want to talk to us if you’re there as well,’’ Stephen says thoughtfully. ‘’There would be two of us, and he knows you better.’’

‘’It’s worth a shot,’’ Wong acknowledges.

Alexander nods. ‘’Let him think it over,’’ he says. ‘’If he wants to talk to Master Strange by himself so desperately, he’ll need to think about it. I haven’t eaten in a while; Tony, would you join me? I hardly imagine you’re needed here. Unless, of course, Master Strange wants your advice.’’

Tony stills as he sees Alexander and Stephen stare at each other for a while. Alexander is smiling faintly, while Stephen’s face is as hard as rock. ‘’I’ll come,’’ he interferes quickly, brushing his hand against Stephen’s. ‘’I’ll need someone to order for me – Simeon doesn’t remember, after all. I’ll see you soon, Stephen.’’

He follows after Alexander, not sure why he’s feeling as miserably as he is. It’s not as if he can do anything, after all; he’s not a sorcerer. He just happens to be dating the Sorcerer Supreme. He’s a bit mad at Stephen for letting Mordo walk, but he’s also anxious and excited about the fact that they have a lead in the Sanctum now. Then again, he’s frustrated by Stephen’s doubts, though maybe they’re warranted. He doesn’t know why the Sanctum has these rules in place, but he’s certain it’s for a reason. He just wants his curse to be gone, and they’ve never been this close to answers before.

He’s just exhausted, and if Stephen were half as exasperated, he’d be interrogating that man already. But Tony can’t expect Stephen to be anything but himself, and he knows Stephen. The sorcerer’s stuck between a rock and a hard place, and Tony giving him a hard time will only make it more difficult for him. 

Alexander glances at him. ‘’I thought you looked uncomfortable,’’ he says kindly. ‘’I know you told me not to call it a lovers’ spat, but –‘’

‘’But that’s what it is,’’ Tony says, smiling bitterly. ‘’Don’t worry. Stephen’s just – well. More morally uptight than I generally care to be. Which is a good thing, of course, but it does tend to…’’

‘’Complicate things?’’ Alexander offers. ‘’You are two very different people, Tony. I don’t claim to be close to Master Strange, but I’m certain he’ll do what he deems is right. Obviously, he won’t want you to remain cursed forever – he’s a good man. He wouldn’t bind you to his and the Sanctum’s care like that, I’m sure. He’ll simply have to find a way to capture Mordo and make him give up the spell; he’ll come through, in the end. And even if he doesn’t – well, Master Minoru and I are always willing to give you a hand.’’

Tony hums, even as they reach the dining hall, but he doesn’t feel hungry anymore. Alexander meant well, but his words strike something in him. What if Stephen’s still insecure about how Tony feels? What if his curse isn’t lifted, and he’s always bound to stay? Would Stephen do something like that, even subconsciously?

He doesn’t want to think about it, but he feels worry churning in his chest. ‘’I’m sorry,’’ he says. ‘’I – uh, I have something else to do. I’ll talk to you later, alright?’’

Alexander frowns in concern, but nods anyway. ‘’Are you alright, Tony?’’

Tony tries to smile, but it’s never felt so fake before. ‘’Yeah, fine, just going to – bye.’’

He stumbles across the halls, until he finds his own room. It’s cold and dusty; he hasn’t slept in here for a few nights in a row. Dum-E still stands here, though, tilting its claw at him.

‘’Hey, boy,’’ Tony says weakly, petting the bot. ‘’Looks like we’re going to spend some time together, huh? What do you think?’’

~*~

Stephen is in the middle of a discussion with Wong when Lydia Irwin runs in, tears dropping out of her eyes as she’s crying frantically. ‘’Master Strange,’’ she yells, falling to her knees as her chest heaves. ‘’It’s Master Haman – and Master Moretti – they’re – you have to do something!’’

Stephen jumps to his feet. ‘’What’s going on?’’

‘’An attack,’’ she says, trembling.

‘’Impossible,’’ Wong says, but Stephen curses and runs. It’s mere seconds before he reaches the door in which they kept Samuel Braxton – he throws it open.

A massacre is before him, and he stops, looking around in fright. Three bodies lie on the floor, and he crouches next to the first one. It’s Master Haman, his eyes closed. There’s a puncture wound in his back, blood slowly dripping on the floor. It’s not of any knife, he’s certain; magic made that wound. It reaches right into his heart, and even as Stephen tries to take the Master’s pulse, he feels the anxiety come.

‘’Shit,’’ he mutters, and drops Haman’s lifeless hand. ‘’This can’t be– this isn’t true.’’

He moves to Moretti next. She still has a pulse, and she breaths shallowly. She doesn’t have any immediately serious injuries, as far as he can see, and that’s a small relief. He moves to Braxton, next, but it’s clear the man is dead. 

‘’Stephen?’’ Wong asks, skipping in after him, taking in the sight.

‘’Master Haman is gone,’’ Stephen says, his voice hoarse. ‘’So is Braxton.’’ He turns to Moretti, with that, gently turning her on her side and inspecting her head.

‘’Is she –‘’ Minoru asks, as she enters, too, coming in from the other direction. She’s obviously heard of what happened and has come running, because she’s breathing heavily as she looks towards the room in shock.

‘’Master Moretti,’’ Stephen says gently. She’s been bashed against the wall, judging from the sluggishly bleeding scrape on her forehead, but she’s not injured otherwise. ‘’Anna? Anna, we’re here, you’re safe.’’

She doesn’t wake, and he frowns. ‘’I’ll get a healer,’’ Minoru offers, and runs off. She’s immediately replaced by Wright, who curses at the sight of what’s before him.

‘’What happened?’’ the London Master asks, his eyes wide. ‘’The entire Sanctum’s in uproar. Have they been… murdered? Who could’ve done such a thing?’’

‘’We have protections in this Sanctum,’’ Stephen says, frustrated. ‘’Nobody should be able to enter like this, no one but one of us. How did they get in here? How did they kill and injure my Masters? _Who did this_?’’

He’s furious, and trembling, and afraid. Master Haman was a friend – he’d been alive, only minutes ago. He’d been here under Stephen’s orders, and now he’s dead. He looks to Wong, but his friend is silent, clear regret in his eyes.

‘’Mordo,’’ Wright says, burrowing his frowns. ‘’Samuel was here to rat out Mordo – he must’ve done this. Who else?’’

Tony runs in, as well, and Stephen’s heart soars upon seeing him. Tony’s safe and uninjured, but clearly shocked – his dark eyes stare at Haman’s body. ‘’Stephen?’’ Tony asks. ‘’What happened? What’s going on?’’

‘’We’re under attack,’’ Wong says roughly. ‘’We need to put the Sanctum on a total lockdown, Stephen. This is – we don’t know how they did this. When they infiltrated the Sanctum the first time, we took measures so that they can’t enter the Sanctum with magic. So how did Mordo do it, then? How did he even know about this? Braxton has been here less than half an hour.’’

‘’An inside man?’’ Stephen offers lightly, but he’s trembling. He doesn’t want to consider an inside job, and he doesn’t want to think about anything at all. Not about Mordo, not about any threat at all, but he’ll have to. He is the Sorcerer Supreme. ‘’How can we go on a lockdown – that means no magic in the Sanctum, Wong. Galactus is coming.’’

‘’We’ll have to manage,’’ Wong says sternly, but he’s pale as he looks at Haman’s still body.

‘’Wait a second,’’ Tony says. ‘’Mordo did this?’’

‘’Who else?’’ Wright repeats.

Stephen agrees, but Tony’s shaking his head. ‘’It can’t have been Mordo,’’ he points out. ‘’The sensors would’ve gone off. FRIDAY would’ve informed me – he can’t have done this.’’

‘’Someone else from his group, then,’’ Wong says, but there’s some doubt in his voice. 

Stephen frowns. It’s not like Mordo to let someone else do his dirty work; then again, it also isn’t like Mordo to so grievously murder someone. Of all the bad things his former friend had done, this is the worst of them all. There’s no reason for anyone else to have killed Braxton, or have murdered Haman as well in such a needlessly cruel manner.

Braxton cannot help them anymore, and once again, Stephen feels as if he is the weakest sorcerer in the Sanctum after all. If only he’d talked to him immediately, they would be a bit wiser. If he’d ignored his own feelings of justice and doing what was right, he would have results. He could have captured Mordo, and he could’ve learnt his plan from Braxton – and again, he is too late. And now, his Master is dead.

‘’We’re going to get to the bottom of this,’’ he says, and sits down a moment longer next to the body of Master Haman. ‘’Wong, call the lockdown and inform the Avengers. We’ve finished all the preparations we could make for Galactus – let’s make sure our own Sanctum doesn’t fall before we can face him.’’

Wong nods, and Stephen casts one last look on Haman’s pale face. He feels a surge of grief and regret run through his body, and then pushes past it. Someone has murdered a Master of his Sanctum, and Stephen is going to make sure that whoever is responsible will be caught.

He’s not sure he can, though – not when he is as hopeless and anxious as he is right now. Tony meets his eyes, equally distraught, but filled with determination.

Tony takes his hand as he reaches him, and hugs him. Stephen lets him, even if it’s in front of everyone, and kisses his cheek. It’s a comfort, and he settles a bit before letting go of the man. 

He has a job to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh, Stephen, darling. Stop being so conflicted.


	32. Chapter 32

They bury Master Haman on a cold morning. Stephen doesn’t cry, but he thinks maybe it would have been better if he’d been able to. Master Moretti just stands silently, pale and lonely, as she stares down at the tombstone.

‘’I wish I could remember something,’’ she says, when everyone else has left and it’s just her and Stephen standing before a cold grave. Stephen looks at the black headstone, and feels the ice grow in his chest.

‘’You bashed your head pretty badly,’’ Stephen tells her. ‘’You may never regain those memories.’’

She sighs, putting her hands in her pocket. ‘’He deserved better.’’

‘’He did,’’ Stephen agrees, and falls silent. It’s true: Master Haman was a beloved teacher and a good friend. Kind and peace-making, and a worthy Master long before Stephen ever came to the Sanctum. It’s not his fault that his friend was murdered – Wong and Tony have told him that often enough – but the guilt is hard to keep away.

She stands beside him for a long moment, wrapping her own arms around herself. The left side of her face is bruised, a small gash disfiguring her brow. She looks both stronger and more helpless than Stephen has ever seen her, but it’s nothing he can’t understand.

‘’I know Mordo has decided his own future a long time ago,’’ she slowly says, ‘’but the Mordo I knew once – he never would have done this. The Karl Mordo I knew befriended his fellow Masters, even when he disagreed with them. He would not have killed Haman so needlessly. Mordo is rigid and unbowed, but he is not a callous murderer, Stephen. He has committed many crimes, but I never believed he’d do this. Or allow one of his followers to.’’

‘’Me neither,’’ he answers. ‘’But Braxton came to betray him, and we’ve paid the price.’’

Moretti turns to him. ‘’And we’re right back where we started,’’ she says, the pain obvious in her voice. She lays a hand on the black tombstone, letting her tears fall inaudibly.

Stephen leaves her to grieve alone, for a while. He aches, as well, but he can’t linger as she does. Instead, he makes his way over to where Tony’s standing with Wong, quietly discussing something. They fall silent as Stephen joins them, looking at him expectantly.

‘’You want to go back to the Sanctum?’’ Tony asks, taking his hand. He’s been an immense comfort to Stephen in the past few days; he’d held him in bed, and he’d made sure they both ate, and he’d made sure that Stephen slept after hours of putting protective spells on the Sanctum. He’d done it all wordlessly, without needing to be asked even once.

Stephen loves him so very much, and he’s afraid he can’t ever let Tony know how much he appreciates him.

‘’Just a few more minutes,’’ he says, though he knows he should return. Wright and Minoru are guarding the Sanctum for him now, while the majority of his own Masters were at Haman’s funeral. He should let them get back to their own Sanctum, but this – this is a farewell.

This is a thing he can’t rush.

The air is freezing cold. It’s late in January, already, and he thinks it’s going to snow sometime in the coming few weeks. The Cloak of Levitation is floating on the wind, gently brushing against his legs. He looks towards the grave and the solitary figure standing by it, and strokes the back of Tony’s hand. 

‘’I’ll help Master Moretti,’’ Wong offers, and with an understanding nod towards Stephen, he leaves them alone.

Tony doesn’t say anything, just shuffles a bit closer towards Stephen. He takes the invitation for what it is and wraps one arm around Tony’s middle, nestling them closer together. Tony smells of coconut soap and motor oil and Stephen’s deodorant, and he soaks it up.

‘’I know it’s hard to deal with this,’’ Tony starts eventually, ‘’but I feel like we’re missing something. Like we’re overlooking a part of what’s happening. We have all these problems piling up and we don’t know how to solve them. The curse, Mordo, Galactus – and now Master Haman has been murdered. When is it going to _end_ , Stephen?’’

‘’One step at a time,’’ Stephen mutters.

‘’We’ve been taking one step at a time. We’re still running behind the facts. Don’t you think that it’s time we got ahead in the race?’’

Stephen sighs and turns, so now Tony’s pressed against him fully. The man looks up to him, his eyes dark and serious. Stephen kisses him gently, and Tony kisses him back, reaching up to Stephen’s hair and holding him there for a few seconds longer.

‘’We can’t get ahead,’’ Stephen says as they break apart. ‘’We barely even have time to deal with Mordo. Galactus is coming closer every day – you said yourself that Gamora told you it could be any day now. Tony, we can’t deal with both Mordo and Galactus at the same time.’’

‘’I’m tired of waiting,’’ Tony says miserably, and folds himself up in Stephen’s arms so that he can’t even see his face anymore.

Stephen rests his head on Tony’s curls, closing his eyes. ‘’We’ll be okay,’’ he says, tightening his grip on Tony. ‘’I promise, we’re going to be okay. We’re going to defeat Galactus, and we’re going to find Mordo, and we’re going to force him to lift your curse. No more holding back – I’m done with charity. You are my priority, Tony. You always are.’’

Tony is silent at that, but Stephen hopes he can be a comfort to the one who has been such a blessing to him. They both have to push past their grief and see the hopes of the future. They need to, because if they stop believing, they’ve already lost.

If there’s one thing that Stephen can’t lose, it’s Tony.

~*~

Stephen has put a lockdown on the Sanctum. There are a few select spells that can hold out spells in a specific area, and he’s put them on their home. Performing magic in the Sanctum is nigh impossible, now, and no one is able to create a portal into the Sanctum anymore. With the spells he’d put on the Sanctum after their first attack, that should already have been difficult to manage, but those had proven fallible.

So he creates a portal to just outside the Sanctum and takes Tony there. It’s still faster than taking their emergency car, at least, though it’s not optimal. There are sacrifices to be made, however, in a situation like this one. Stephen doesn’t want to run a single risk of anyone else dying in his care, and feels a stab of sorrow for Haman.

Tony follows him into the Sanctum quietly and kisses him when they enter. ‘’You go say goodbye to Alexander and Minoru, and I’ll be in the library with Dum-E when you’re done,’’ he says. Stephen nods, and with a brush over Tony’s arm, he leaves.

Minoru and Wright are sitting together in Stephen’s private room. Wright is reading a manuscript while Minoru is meditating, but they both look up as he enters.

‘’Master Strange,’’ Minoru rises, greeting him. She doesn’t look as stoic as she normally does, with her brows furrowed and her eyes sympathetic. ‘’How are you holding up?’’

‘’I’m alright,’’ he answers honestly. ‘’The entire Sanctum grieves, but we have to focus on the threats for now. Master Haman and his sacrifice will not be forgotten, and we will deal with the perpetrator in due time.’’

Wright nods, laying aside his manuscript. ‘’There’s nothing else we can do for now.’’

The pale light of winter falls into the room. Stephen can see the specks of dust in the sunlight, and feels calm for a few moments. There is nothing to do but wait for the inevitable; nothing that he can prepare for, anymore, nothing he can influence. Galactus will show up when he can, and Mordo will, too. Everything is in the future, and time will bring him there eventually.

This is the calm before the storm, and he means to use that calm to defeat the storm.

‘’Call for us if you have any news,’’ Minoru tells him, and touches his shoulder for a second. ‘’We stand beside you, Master Strange. In your grief and in your hope.’’

With that, she leaves with Wright. Stephen stays still for a few moments, taking a deep breath. His grief for Master Haman is still settled heavily in his chest, but there is little he can do about it. He is gone and buried, and now they have to find a way to go on without their beloved Master. 

He turns around and makes his way to the library, then. No one will bother him, he knows – everyone is grieving Haman and waiting for Galactus. There is a strange tension in the Sanctum, fear and desperation and grief and determination and strength all mingling together. Stephen knows that some sorcerers doubt their ability to win the coming fight; he doesn’t even dare think about losing.

Tony is exactly where he said he’d be, the small bot by his side browsing newspapers again. It’s a familiar sight to see him sitting there, and Stephen feels a surge of fondness for the man. He remembers the first few times they’d spent in the library together, when he hadn’t yet known how much Tony would grow to mean to him.

Now, he can’t imagine not seeing Tony sitting here, his notebook in his hands and the intelligence bright in his dark eyes.

Tony looks up when Stephen enters. Immediately, his lips tilt into something resembling a smile, and Stephen tries to sit beside him nonchalantly. ‘’Do you come here often?’’ he asks.

A grin greets him. ‘’Only when I’m looking for a date,’’ Tony teases.

Stephen takes his hand, smiling at him. ‘’Well, maybe I can be yours.’’

‘’I don’t know,’’ he says, narrowing his eyes at Stephen. ‘’I only date tall, sarcastic doctors with a proficiency in the Mystic Arts. Do you think you can live up to that?’’

‘’Demanding, but I think I can manage,’’ Stephen tells him. ‘’You’re a guy who knows what he wants, aren’t you?’’

Tony’s grin softens into something sweeter and he leans closer. ‘’Just you,’’ he murmurs, and Stephen closes the distance between them. Tony leans into it, and bites his lower lip before apologizing with a soft brush of his tongue. Stephen doesn’t mind – Tony is more than capable of driving him mad with merely a hint of a kiss, and he’s never failed to do so.

It’s still hard to believe that someone so unbelievably intelligent and exceptionally charming is with him, now. A year ago, Stephen wouldn’t have believed that he’d ever be in love with someone ever again, and here Tony is – kind and helpful, sharing his joy in the days that are easy and giving him comfort on the days that aren’t.

The words lie on his tongue, but Stephen can’t tell him yet. Not yet.

So he keeps his mouth shut as Tony draws away, humming happily at him. Dum-E whirs behind him, and the Cloak of Levitation leaves Stephen’s shoulders to annoy the bot.

Tony sobers up then, resting his ankle against Stephen’s. ‘’Are you done with the spells?’’ he asks, sounding a bit worried. Stephen can understand why; he’d worked himself to exhaustion the past days. The spells aren’t exactly easy, and they take a lot of energy and skill. It’s only because of Tony and Wong that he had managed to finish as quickly as he had.

‘’I cast the last one this morning,’’ he says. ‘’There’s nothing more to be done for it, now.’’

Tony sighs. ‘’I’m the worst at waiting. Stark Industries is making the weapons, as many as they can, and the ships are fully loaded. The Guardians’ ship is loaded and equipped with an arc reactor. My suit is ready, and everyone knows what to do. Can’t we – I don’t know, do anything else?’’

Stephen shifts where he’s sitting. ‘’Patience,’’ he reminds Tony. ‘’Use this time to regain your strength. We’re all tired and grieving.’’

‘’Can’t we go after Mordo while we’re waiting for Galactus to show up?’’ Tony presses. ‘’We can make a few more sensors, put them all over New York. He’s triggered them once, maybe we’ll catch him again.’’

He stops the inventor. ‘’Tony, calm down. We’re going to catch Mordo.’’

‘’How can you be so sure of that?’’ Tony shoots back. ‘’Stephen, he’s evaded us for months. I’ve been in the Sanctum for how many months now? Almost half a year, right? We’ve fought him a few times now and we’ve never managed to catch him. We only had Price, and he escaped, too. We had Braxton, and he was killed before he could tell you anything. We don’t even know who killed him!’’

‘’Someone in Mordo’s group,’’ Stephen says. ‘’It can’t have been anyone else.’’

‘’You know we’re missing something,’’ Tony says, standing up and starting to pace. Stephen just watches him go. ‘’Something _obvious_. I know defeating Galactus is our priority, alright? I’m well aware. But how many chances do we have at catching Mordo?’’

‘’Well, what are you suggesting?’’ Stephen says, crossing his arms. ‘’Mordo was one of the strongest Masters we had, and it’s for a reason. We don’t know what he wants, besides cursing you.’’

‘’But there was something else, too,’’ Tony says. ‘’Braxton said there was something you needed to know – something he didn’t think Mordo knew. He made it seem like it was bad, you know, world-threatening bad. What if he knew something about Galactus?’’

Stephen frowns. ‘’That’s a far-fetched allegation,’’ he points out.

Tony sits down again, his hands gesturing even quicker than he’s talking. ‘’I know, but it must have been something bad to make him defect, right? Let’s assume we don’t have two threats coming at the same time. Braxton has spent months with Mordo – he must’ve agreed with the cause to stay for so long. Even now, he was defending Mordo, saying that he didn’t know about it. What else could it have been?’’

‘’We don’t have any evidence for this. We can’t assume Braxton knew about Galactus.’’

Tony waves it away. ‘’I know, okay? Something is still bothering me, though – if Braxton knew something that Mordo didn’t, how did he figure it out?’’

Stephen is silent for a few moments. Tony stares at him eagerly. He wants to agree, but the rational part of him simply can’t. He can’t make this many assumptions, not when it can be about something else entirely. On the other hand, he believes Tony’s onto something, anyway. 

He wants to ask something when the library door opens, and he turns instead. Wong stands there, and greets both of them. ‘’Lydia is taking care of Master Moretti now,’’ he says, gesturing with his head to the floor above them. ‘’Master Chen is meditating with the students.’’

Stephen nods, and stands. ‘’Thank you,’’ he says sincerely. ‘’Do you need me to talk to someone? I know I haven’t been the most supportive Master –‘’

‘’Everyone knows you’ve been busy protecting us,’’ Wong interjects. ‘’No one faults you for anything, Stephen. If anything, they’re worried about your health, with the hours you’ve been making. No, I came to tell you that Vision has asked if you’re able to visit the Avengers Compound today. He says he wants to show you and Tony something, if you’re up for it.’’

Stephen furrows his brows and looks at Tony, who crosses his arms. ‘’Do you know what for?’’ he asks, aiming it both at Wong and Tony. Wong simply shrugs, and Tony makes a face.

They have little else to do at that moment, so Stephen decides they might just as well visit the Compound. Tony takes his hoodie, with the suit, just in case. Stephen waits outside for him, the sunlight making up for the breeze.

Tony hurries outside and takes Stephen’s hand almost as if in reflex. ‘’Why don’t we just take the car?’’ he asks, looking at it. ‘’I know it’s for emergencies and it’ll take a bit longer, but c’mon – I like driving. I haven’t driven a car since you were injured, and I didn’t have much time to enjoy it, then. Please?’’

His eyes are dark and pleading, and Stephen will never be able to say no to him. ‘’I’m going to regret letting you drive, aren’t I?’’ he asks.

Tony beams. ‘’I’ll reward you for your sacrifice. Gladly and thoroughly.’’

He sighs, but walks back inside to search for the keys to the car anyway.

~*~

There’s maybe a bit fewer than thirty people in what once was one of the living rooms in the Compound. Now, there’s make-shifts beds and bags all over the place. There’s notes hanging everywhere, explaining the situation, much like Tony had had when he first came to the Sanctum.

‘’All these people have been cursed?’’ he asks, his voice low. 

Vision, beside him, nods. ‘’You and Strange found out and came to me, because I would remember,’’ the android answers. ‘’I have managed to find several people by simply asking about celebrities; others came in answer to the ad and to personal messages I put out on Internet. They have all been desperate, and all have been cursed at different times. Strange, do you remember the last time you found Mordo? Do you remember what he was doing?’’

Tony can see Stephen narrowing his eyes. ‘’The sensor picked up on him. He was – breaking and entering? But no one was home, was there?’’

Vision shakes his head. ‘’That woman over there – Delilah Wynn. Mordo just cursed her when you entered. She is a famous actress. All of them are celebrities – politicians, actors, singers, influencers. Well-known all over the world. None of them are remembered. They have created a very particular community here. Wanda has made herself remember some of them, and talks to them sometimes. The Guardians visit occasionally, too. Some of these people are immensely desperate, but fortunately all of them see the use in waiting. I have told them that you are working on their problem.’’

‘’I will make myself remember some of them,’’ Stephen says resolutely, looking around the room. ‘’At the very least, I’ll know that there are others suffering from the Curse of Athazagora.’’

Tony watches him go talk to an elderly man. Perhaps he knows that man, if they’re all celebrities. Probably he knows all of them – maybe met some, too. It’s an odd feeling to know that he can’t remember. Vision stands beside him, eyeing him knowingly. 

‘’Why celebrities?’’ he asks. ‘’Why _only_ celebrities? Why this many?’’

Vision stares at the group of people. ‘’I imagine Mordo has his reasons. It’s a very methodical procedure, definitely. There must be even more cursed people than the ones we have here – we can’t have reached all of them, and there are some that I have not managed to find.’’

Tony stills. He remembers the desperation he felt, at the start of his curse. He has the Sanctum, now, and Stephen and Vision and Wong and all those other people that do remember him. He still misses Pepper, Rhodey and Peter, but with others to remember, it hurts less. He can’t imagine what someone else would have done, had they found themselves in the same situation.

Well, he can imagine. He can very easily imagine someone giving up. It’s easy to jump off a bridge, or in front of a train. It’s easy to end the suffering, if it goes on too long. If there’s no hope, there’s no limits to what a man can do.

‘’I’ll talk to someone as well,’’ he offers, because he doesn’t want to think on it for too long. It’s not only for him that he’ll have to find Mordo and convince him to give up the curse; they’re fighting for all of these people, so unfamiliar to him. So unfamiliar to the ones who loved them most.

Tony mingles and finds a middle-aged man sitting alone. He has a picture in his hands, and Tony feels for him. ‘’Hey,’’ he says, sitting down next to him. ‘’I’m Tony. How are you doing?’’

The man starts, looking at him with large blue eyes. ‘’I’m Tom,’’ he offers weakly. ‘’Yeah, fine, I’m fine. Well, you know. I guess you know?’’

‘’I do know,’’ Tony confirms. He looks at the photograph. It’s a woman with a young child, and he stares at them for a moment. ‘’Who’re they?’’

‘’My wife and daughter,’’ Tom says, and stares for a few seconds as well. ‘’They forgot who I am. They’re still home, so I hope they’re safe and happy, even without me. Normally, I’d be taking my Amy to Washington Square Park around this time. She loves to walk with me, but now… well, you know. Are you – how long have you been like this?’’

‘’Months. You?’’

‘’Only a little while. Vision says I’m the newest addition. I’ve been here since Friday.’’

Tony nods. ‘’Sucks, right? You’ll get back to playing with your daughter in Washington Square Park soon enough, I promise. I’m working with the sorcerers to find the guy who did this. Hey, they live near that park, actually. You’re from there?’’

‘’Yeah, I live just around the corner,’’ Tom says.

Tony narrows his eyes. ‘’I’m sorry – were you cursed there, as well? In as far as you know, at least. You were near home?’’

Tom seems confused. ‘’Yeah, I think so. I was home sick for a while, and then they started forgetting about me. Why?’’

‘’I don’t know,’’ Tony says, but his mind is whirring with ideas. There’s something important about this piece of information. ‘’Maybe it’s just – no, wait, I’ve got it! Sorry, wait, I’ll be back.’’

He stands up and runs towards Vision, who eyes him worriedly. ‘’Something the matter?’’ he asks.

‘’Washington Square Park,’’ Tony breathes. ‘’If someone was cursed near there, one of the sensors should’ve picked up on it. Which can only mean that it’s not just Mordo who’s cursing people. We would’ve known. He can’t have random people cursing people, right? It’s a difficult curse, or Stephen told me so, at least. Especially because they’re hiding the trace, and it has so much energy outlet. It’s difficult, and he needs to have some overview – he can’t let too many others curse people, because he’ll forget about those, too. It’ll get confused and hazy, and he’s orderly, as you said. So it has to be only one ally – someone not following him, but working _with_ him.’’

Vision narrows his eyes. ‘’That does make sense,’’ he admits.

‘’And if it’s not Mordo who killed Braxton and Haman, it has to be his ally,’’ Tony continues. Stephen is listening in from a few feet away, having abandoned his conversation with the older man to listen to Tony’s theory.

‘’But who could that be?’’ Stephen asks.

‘’I don’t know. Honestly – maybe someone who defected? There’s no saying, but they’re important. We have to find both Mordo and his ally if we want to make sure we lift all the curses.’’

Tony takes a piece of paper and starts scribbling on it. He can’t be allowed to forget any of this – it’s important, and he’s not sure they’ll remember. Maybe they will, but he doesn’t feel ready to take any chances.

This is one thing they need to remember.


	33. Chapter 33

It’s surreal to see the Guardians leaving again. They’re packing up some stuff early in the morning, testing out the new additions that Tony had given them. Quill especially moons over the extra power from the arc reactor while Rocket admires the weapons. 

‘’Thanks for upgrading the ship,’’ Gamora says as she shakes Tony’s hand. She’d looked at him a bit weirdly when he’d offered his, but it seems she has some experience with ignoring human customs. ‘’I’m sure it’ll be a lot of help.’’

‘’I’m glad to have helped,’’ Tony answers. It was entertaining to work on their ship, actually; there’s some alien technology that he took note of, and other applications that work very differently. Incorporating his own weapons and the arc reactor into that was a job that took up all his mental capacity, though he’d still solved it rather quickly. 

‘’I am Groot!’’ Groot exclaims, and Rocket appears from inside the ship.

The raccoon grins at him, and Tony can’t help but grin back. ‘’Galactus ain’t stand a chance with this,’’ he declares, and disappears back inside.

Mantis and Gamora look more worried, but neither of them say anything. Tony already knows not to take anything Rocket says too seriously, though he sincerely hopes the raccoon is right this time. A lot depends on whether they’re able to fight off Galactus or not; if they’re not, none of his other problems will matter. Earth will be lifeless and lost, without energy. The sorcerers will have lost their source of strength and it won’t matter what Mordo is doing, because all of them will be without powers.

‘’Good luck,’’ he says.

‘’We’ll keep you informed on the situation,’’ Gamora says. ‘’If Galactus is coming, you’ll be the first we contact. Take care, Tony.’’

‘’Don’t engage him until we get there,’’ Tony warns them. ‘’Good luck!’’

With a few more goodbyes from the Avengers, the Guardians leave. They’d stayed at the Compound for the better part of their second stay, and there’d been some new friendships that had come out of that. Wanda stands beside Tony as he watches the spaceship leave the atmosphere.

‘’I was sorry to hear about Master Haman,’’ she says eventually. ‘’It must have been shocking.’’

Tony turns to her. ‘’Yeah. The entire Sanctum is grieving.’’

Wanda takes a breath, but doesn’t say anything else. Tony thinks that maybe she doesn’t know what to talk about; they’ve never been close, their past always in between them. They’re not openly hostile, but they’re – well, awkward. They don’t have to be friends, but they’re allies. And he knows that Stephen likes her, as he’s made her more or less his personal student.

‘’You haven’t captured the murderer, yet?’’

Tony regards her. Wanda stares back inscrutably, but there’s a hint of concern in the furrow of her brow. He shakes his head. ‘’We wouldn’t know where to start.’’

It’s a problem that they don’t have time to solve. Before any of it will matter, they first need to make sure Galactus won’t wreak havoc on the planet. It feels bitter, because they’re still mourning Master Haman. His death was grossly unfair, and Tony knows that everyone in the Sanctum wants to bring in the person who performed such a deed. All they have to go on is Mordo, and he doesn’t show his cards easily. Who knows when they’ll find him again – and if he’ll even lead them to the culprit. Mordo has shown to be steadfastly loyal to his own cause, no matter how wrong. It’s a matter of concern for more reason than one for Tony; he would’ve gone mad if it wasn’t for Stephen’s constant reassurances. 

‘’You want to go back to the Sanctum?’’ she asks him, after a short silence.

Tony nods at once, and sees her scrunching her face. Making portals doesn’t come easily to her, but she’s getting used to Sanctum-magic, combining it with the power of her own. Her sparks aren’t so much orange as magenta, creating another atmosphere. She manages, eventually, and walks through it with Tony out onto Bleecker Street. 

‘’Thanks,’’ he says uneasily. ‘’Uh – take care?’’

‘’I just –‘’ Wanda starts, and then composes herself, drawing up to her full height. ‘’We’re going to be alright, Tony. Good luck.’’

‘’You too,’’ Tony says. She smiles at him, and with a single pat on his shoulder, she returns to the Compound. Tony just turns around and knocks on the door of Bleecker Street 177A. It’s Master Brown who opens the door for him.

A gush of warmth envelops him as he steps inside, and he feels at home immediately again. There’s a few sorcerers making their way through the halls, and they don’t know him, but he knows them and that’s a comfort anyway. 

‘’There’s a visitor for you,’’ Master Brown informs him, smiling gently.

Tony frowns. ‘’A visitor?’’ he asks. Half of the people who remember him just went up in space, and the other half lives here already. He has just seen Vision and Wanda. There’s no one else in the world who knows who he is, and he can’t think of who would even want to visit anyway.

‘’He’s waiting in the gardens with Stephen,’’ she says. 

She doesn’t say anything else as she wanders off. Tony frowns after her before he decides to start walking towards the gardens anyway; she didn’t specify which one, but he can try a few. If Stephen is there as well, it can’t be that bad. No one would let any harm come to him in the Sanctum, and Stephen wouldn’t allow anyone to harm Tony. He knows all of that, but he still feels uneasy.

The moment he walks into the right garden, he stills. Stephen is talking to a familiar boy with brown eyes, smiling at the kid easily, and Tony just wants to stand still and capture the moment.

Of course, that is when Stephen sees him. ‘’Tony,’’ he says warmly, standing up to greet him with a quick kiss. ‘’We were just talking about you.’’

Peter turns to him, his eyes uncertain but with a sincere beam. ‘’Mr Stark,’’ he says, and it’s so familiar and comfortable that Tony would almost forget that Peter doesn’t actually remember him.

‘’Hey, kid,’’ he says. ‘’What – how did you get here? Stephen?’’

‘’I made notes on my phone,’’ Peter says, and holds up his device. ‘’I think I forgot a few times – it’s an older note, but it has your name and this building on it. I decided to just follow it this time, and here I am. Doctor Strange found me and invited me in, and told me all about you. So, uh – I’m here to visit.’’

Stephen squeezes his shoulder. ‘’He’s a good kid, Tony,’’ he mutters in his ear. ‘’Have fun.’’

The sorcerer saunters out of the gardens with a wave at Peter and a wink at Tony. Tony wants to follow up after him and pin him to a wall and kiss him until his lips are swollen, but there’s other things he wants even more now. He turns back to Peter, who’s staring at him expectantly from where he’s sitting on the stone bench.

Tony carefully sits beside him. ‘’Seems you found me, kid.’’

Peter shrugs. ‘’I don’t remember you, but from what I’ve written, it feels like that’s unfair. You were important to me, doctor Strange said. You were my mentor. And I feel bad for not remembering you.’’

‘’That’s hardly your fault,’’ Tony says, stilling. ‘’Everyone forgot, Peter. That’s not something any of us could do anything about.’’

‘’Still,’’ Peter says, looking at his lap. ‘’I think – I know on some level, right? That something isn’t right, you know. But it’s not anything you can pinpoint, so you just go, like, I’m being crazy. But then all my senses go tingling, and it’s – I know something’s wrong, but I can’t get a grasp on it, so I keep ignoring it. Now I think it’s you, because I know that something’s actually missing, and it’s you. Because I feel lonelier than I did a few months ago, and I don’t know why.’’

Tony puts an arm around Peter’s shoulder, aching. ‘’Hey, I’m still here,’’ he says, as he marvels over Peter’s intuitions. His heightened senses seem to work for noticing curses to a certain extent – he’s still affected, but he can sense that something else is going on, too. ‘’We’re going to fix this, and you’ll remember me in no time. You’ll see.’’

‘’I hope so,’’ Peter mutters. ‘’I’m going with the Avengers to fight Galactus. I don’t know what use I’ll have, but if I can help – I want to, you know?’’

Tony’s heart constricts, and he takes Peter by both his shoulders. ‘’You’re going on that ship?’’ he repeats. ‘’Who thought that was a good idea? Peter, you’re a kid. That’s not anything you have to worry about, alright?’’

‘’I offered,’’ the kid protests. ‘’I want to help. And if there’s any way I can help, I will. I can’t watch out for the neighbourhood if someone eats all the energy!’’

Tony looks away, shaking his head. ‘’I need you to be careful,’’ he says slowly. ‘’I need you to stay safe and sound, alright? Because if something happens to you, I can’t bear it, Peter. You have to promise me that you’ll be safe.’’

A small sigh escapes Peter, but he nods. ‘’I always try,’’ he murmurs. ‘’I don’t want to do that to Aunt May. I promise, Mr Stark.’’

Tony closes his eyes for a second, muttering a curse to himself. ‘’I’m going to be worried sick, but fortunately, I’ll be up there too,’’ he tells Peter. ‘’I’ll watch out for you.’’

‘’Then you’ve got to be careful too,’’ Peter tells him, crossing his arms. ‘’I want to remember you again, some day.’’

‘’Right,’’ Tony says. ‘’Only you’re going to forget I ever promised you anything, or that you even know me at all. So what use does it have?’’

Peter frowns at him, and Tony laughs at it. The kid can’t look mad, even if he tries, but Peter scowls at his amusement anyway. ‘’Well, I won’t remember ever promising you anything,’’ he returns. ‘’Just do it. You’re going to remember promising, and you need to hold yourself to it. For me.’’

‘’Alright, kid,’’ Tony responds as he calms down. ‘’I promise I’ll be safe to see you again, okay?’’

Peter smiles at that, clearly calmer.

~*~

It’s dark out when Peter is brought home by Master Brown, the effervescent portal’s sparks reflected in his dark eyes as he gazes in wonder. Tony waves at him, fond and smiling, and tries not to feel dejected as he thinks about Peter forgetting all about the talk they shared in the Sanctum’s garden.

He walks around the Sanctum by himself for a while, going by his room to talk to Dum-E for a bit, but finds he misses Stephen. Besides, he hasn’t had dinner yet, and he thinks that maybe Stephen hasn’t eaten either. He just wants to lean against the sorcerer’s lean body and let the soft hum of his voice drain away Tony’s remaining tension.

With determined strides, he himself on the way to Stephen’s personal chambers. He knows the route by heart, now, and he inclines his head to anyone who passes on his way, whether they remember him or not. It’d feel weird not to, considering he sees so many of them daily.

When he comes to Stephen door, he can hear him talking to someone else, in a muffled voice. Just to be certain, he knocks. Stephen calls for him to come him, and he pokes his head in to see Wong standing there as well, both sorcerers looking at him.

‘’Hey,’’ he says. ‘’Am I interrupting?’’

‘’I was just leaving,’’ Wong says. ‘’Think about it, Stephen. I’ll talk to you later. Good night, Tony.’’

‘’Night,’’ Tony waves at him. The door falls shut behind Wong, and he takes the silence to walk up to Stephen and greet him fondly with a kiss on his cheek before settling on Stephen’s couch. Stephen smiles fondly at him, sitting down beside him and lacing their fingers together.

Stephen, Tony has long figured out by now, is very tactile, and won’t miss an opportunity to touch him. He enjoys the close contact thoroughly; he’s always been much of cuddle-enthusiast himself, but Pepper wasn’t one for continuous close contact. Stephen relishes in their closeness, however, and Tony isn’t planning on discouraging it any time soon.

‘’I understand why you’re so fond of the boy,’’ Stephen tells him. ‘’Very bright kid. He has a wonderful future ahead, I’d say. I wouldn’t have thought otherwise, of course, since you’re doting on him so much, but even then, I liked him better than expected.’’

‘’Not a kid person, are you?’’ Tony laughs.

Stephen shrugs. ‘’Never minded them,’’ he says. ‘’It’s just not something I usually concern myself with. I’ve never had a lot of contact with kids, not even when I was one myself. But this one – I like this one.’’

‘’Well, I like this one too,’’ Tony says, teasing. ‘’And this one, of course.’’ At that, he pokes Stephen in his side. The sorcerer shakes his head at him, but he’s grinning, and presses a chaste kiss to Tony’s cheek. Tony cleverly turns his head to capture Stephen’s lips, putting a hand on the man’s cheek to keep him there, and kisses him sweetly.

Stephen slightly tilts his head to make it easier for Tony to deepen their kiss, and for a few moments, they’re just drowning in each other. Stephen hums into it and Tony lets his hands roam the sorcerer, mapping the body that is quickly becoming familiar to him. He feels Stephen’s own hands ghosting over the small of his back.

It’s a progress he normally wouldn’t stop, but a roar from his belly interrupts them, and Stephen breaks away with a huff of laughter. ‘’Have you eaten at all today?’’ he asks, pecking his lips one last time before pulling away.

‘’I don’t need food,’’ Tony says, and tries to lean forward, but the moment’s gone as Stephen sits upright again. ‘’No – no, come back here, I’m not finished.’’

‘’I know you’re not,’’ Stephen says, with one last stroke over Tony’s back. ‘’But you’ll be spoiled if I always do as you say. C’mon, I think Simeon’s making filet mignon today. How did it go with the Guardians? What did Peter say to you?’’

Tony sighs in frustration, but gets up as he watches Stephen put on the Cloak again and fixing up his messy hair. ‘’Well, they left and will warn us if Galactus is here. Pretty much all there is to that. Peter’s – well, he seemed content. Turns out that he’s going to go into space with the Avengers, anyway – not sure how much of a fan I am when it comes to that, but I couldn’t convince him. Maybe I can convince Vision to keep Peter on Earth when the time comes, but the kid seemed pretty adamant about coming, so I’m not sure that’d work either.’’

Stephen turns to him with a frown. ‘’They’re letting Peter come with them in space? That’s a bit reckless.’’

‘’I thought so,’’ Tony says tiredly. ‘’He won’t listen to me, though – he knows I’m important, somehow, but he doesn’t actually feel it like that, so my opinion doesn’t weigh as much. Still, he’s pretty much set on going.’’

Stephen hums. ‘’Well, Wong told me that Wright wants to come on the ships, too.’’

‘’What?’’ he returns, as he straightens out his shirt. ‘’I thought that was a bad idea, with all the energy output of sorcerers.’’

‘’I’m not sure how much difference it’ll make. Besides, we could use a back-up in case ships start malfunctioning. With a sorcerer on board, we’ll be able to teleport everyone out of there before a crash happens.’’

‘’Sure, but the crash is more likely to happen if you actually come,’’ Tony points out, crossing his arms at Stephen. ‘’You’re not actually reconsidering this, right? We decided this was the best way.’’

‘’I’ve never been comfortable with this way,’’ Stephen reminds him, a frown appearing on his face. ‘’Tony, you’re bait – isn’t it a good thing to have a way out, in case things go differently than we might expect?’’

‘’If things go differently, we’ve lost already.’’

Stephen seems agitated now. Tony doesn’t want to have this conversation again; he knows that Stephen doesn’t like the idea of Tony playing bait, but they’ve decided on this. Galactus could come any day, and it’s important that they have a plan and stick to it, now. They shouldn’t take any more risks than they’re already taking.

‘’It’s a plan B, Tony,’’ Stephen says. ‘’There won’t be any magic until we know it’s needed or it’s safe. The extra risk is minimal, and there’s far more security! What if you need help, and there’s no one available who even remembers who you are? What if they forget what they need to do right in that moment? Your curse is your bait, and it places you at a much higher risk.’’

‘’There’s enough people there that know me, by now,’’ Tony returns. ‘’Besides, you’re on ground control, right? Didn’t you have Wright keeping contact with the Avengers? I can talk to you, if there’s a problem.’’

Stephen huffs out a breath in frustration. ‘’There’s a thousand scenarios that we haven’t accounted for! What if I’m unconscious, and everyone else that remembers you? What if we’re _killed_? You’ll be right off where you started when you first came to the Sanctum! There’ll be no one, and only because you needed to be a hero!’’

‘’And whose fault is that?’’ Tony shouts, turning around with a desperate look in his eyes. ‘’When I came here, I thought you’d help! I thought that I’d finally come to someone who could _cure_ me! And instead, I’ve been lingering here and no one cares because no one knows! Everyone I’ve ever loved has to look at a fucking note to remember my name!’’

‘’ _Everyone_ you love?’’ Stephen repeats, voice cold as ice. 

Tony breathes out loudly. ‘’Stephen –‘’

Stephen shakes his head, and walks out. Tony moves to follow him, but Stephen is faster than him. He runs down the stairs, calling out his name, regret already filling up his chest. He storms out of the Sanctum, and Tony can only take a single step forward before Stephen disappears in a portal to who knows where.

Tony sags down to the street and sits there, trembling and trying to control his breathing. All the passers-by who walk along Bleecker Street 177A give him an odd look, but then they forget he ever existed, and he’s not felt so alone in a long time.


	34. Chapter 34

Stephen walks for a few hours. He doesn’t keep count, but the darkness steadily evens out over New York. He trembles with cold under the Cloak, but he doesn’t turn back. The stars and the moon are hidden by dark clouds, and rain starts pouring down when he’s been walking for just a while.

When he realizes how much he aches and how tired he is, he stops. He’s been walking straight-on; he has no idea where he is. There’s not a lot of other people out on the streets, but the ones who are offer him an odd look before moving on. Stephen ignores them; he knows he’s drenched and still in his outfit befitting a Sorcerer Supreme, and he must make for a miserable sight. He doesn’t care what any of them think.

He wants to go back to the Sanctum and sleep for ten hours straight. It’d be even better if Tony was pressed against him, muttering equations in his sleep, like he tends to. He’s not sure he’ll get that – he’s not even sure his pride would allow him to take it if Tony offered. 

All things considered, Stephen is still mad, but he’s calmer, too. He knows why Tony made the points he did – thing is, Stephen isn’t so sure it’s not a better idea to have a few sorcerers with them. Just a few in case things go awry. He’ll be worrying himself sick over Tony if he’s down here, especially because he won’t be able to help. In space, he could do more than just instruct others. It’s the plan they agreed upon first, but that doesn’t mean it’s the better plan.

He sighs. He can’t walk around New York forever – it’s a bad idea to be away from the Sanctum for so long, anyway, after everything that has happened. He needs to make up with Tony, and come to a mutual decision. That would be the grown-up thing to do.

Stephen’s not so sure he wants to. He remembers how he walked out – Tony calling out after him, a desperate note in his voice.

If he goes back, he has to ask Tony what they are to each other. He’s going to have to tell him how he loves Tony with everything he has, and that wouldn’t be so bad. Stephen has toyed with the idea of mouthing out the words before – words that mean so much to him, because he has never been able to properly say them to anyone. It wouldn’t be so bad, if he was sure that Tony felt the same. But after their fight – he’s not so sure.

On a rational level, he knows he’s being insecure. Tony is happy with him, he’s certain of that. It’s just that Stephen knows that Tony was happy with Pepper too, and he doesn’t know if he’s capable of the same things that she was. If Tony can see a future with Stephen the way he once saw one with her. If he’s not just as capable of losing the love he holds for Stephen like he lost what he had with Pepper.

So he walks on for just a few more minutes, trying to gather up the courage to return to the Sanctum.

But he’s the Sorcerer Supreme, so he must. In a back alley, he creates a portal and returns to Bleecker Street, watching the Sanctum with tired eyes.

~*~

He has a key to the door of the Sanctum, of course, so he doesn’t have to knock. Still, Wong is standing there as if he’s been expecting him all along, drenched and miserable. He tilts his head in sympathy. ‘’You had a fight with Tony.’’

‘’Did he talk to you?’’ he asks.

Wong shakes his head. ‘’I came in to find him playing sad Queen songs. I think he was waiting for you to come home.’’

Stephen can envision it easily; Tony sitting on the couch with his legs slung over the cushion, staring up the ceiling and patiently waiting. Something settles in his chest at the thought – Tony wouldn’t have waited all night if he’s mad. Certainly he wouldn’t be playing sad songs if he was.

‘’I’m sorry I left the Sanctum,’’ he offers, even as the Cloak of Levitation removes itself from his shoulders and flies away somewhere warmer, clearly not having enjoyed the walk in the rain. ‘’I know it’s not ideal.’’

Wong smiles grimly. ‘’The past few weeks haven’t been easy on anyone.’’

‘’I’m the Sorcerer Supreme, and I shouldn’t have left.’’

‘’Perhaps not. Stephen, don’t beat yourself up. I do that enough for you. Nothing happened, and you would’ve returned straight away if it had. Go make up with Tony.’’

He nods and goes up the stairs, taking two at a time. He rather expects Tony to be sleeping, when he gets back to his room, but instead the man is still up, silently staring at the window. He turns immediately when Stephen enters, wariness evident in his dark gaze.

Stephen doesn’t say anything, either, as he closes the door behind him. It falls shut with a soft click, the only sound between them for a while. He thinks back to the day he first kissed Tony, when he’d been so worried and madly in love. That was here, too, and things had been double as hard and somehow easier, too.

He’s still madly in love. Things just get complicated, when you care about someone else so much.

‘’It’s not everyone,’’ Tony says suddenly, and Stephen frowns.

‘’What?’’

Tony presses his lips together, and tilts his head away so he can only see the profile of his face. ‘’It’s not everyone I love. That has to look at a note, I mean. It was, when I first came here. But – well, I’ve got friends in the Sanctum that remember me. Things are better with Vision and Wanda. Most of all, I have you. And I didn’t mean what I said – I know you’ve been trying your hardest to lift the curse. I’ve been up here all night, trying to make up excuses for why I said that. Point is, there’s no excuse. You’ve taken me in when I had no hope, and you’ve done more than anyone could ever have expected of you.’’

‘’Tony –‘’

‘’I’m not finished. What I’m trying to say – I love you. And it doesn’t matter how afraid I am, or how desperate, because it all comes back to you, Stephen. As long as I’ve got you, I don’t need to be any of that. I don’t want to lose you, so, there it is. I love you.’’

Stephen is silent for long enough that Tony turns his head. There is a hopeful expression on his face, but his eyes are dark and hollow from having been awake the whole night. Stephen doesn’t think he looks any better; his hair is still wet, and he’s shivering from the cold. Still, he feels better than he has in a long while. In a way, he knew that Tony loved him. His actions have all said it before. 

And yet. The words mean more than he thought they would. He takes a few steps forward, and Tony doesn’t step back, though he watches on warily. Stephen doesn’t stop until he’s right in front of Tony and then kisses him. He doesn’t have to wait for Tony to respond; the man doesn’t hold back, and that, more than anything, else betrays his desperation.

‘’Your hair is wet,’’ Tony complains in between kisses, even as he continues to plant feather-light kisses on Stephen’s neck.

Stephen hums. ‘’It rained,’’ he says in way of explanation, but Tony isn’t able to respond as he captures his lips again. Tony’s face is warmer than his own, and Stephen presses against that welcome heat with his hands, warming up eagerly. Tony doesn’t seem to mind, and Stephen enjoys the way they’re melting together.

‘’You should get a shower,’’ Tony notes the next time they come up for air. ‘’You reek.’’

‘’I’m not letting go of you that soon,’’ Stephen tells him seriously. After the night he had, he really doesn’t mean to be separated again that soon.

Tony smiles wryly. ‘’You won’t have to. I can use one, too. C’mon, doctor.’’

‘’Hey, hold up,’’ Stephen says, gently grabbing Tony’s wrist as he tries to leave. He kisses him once more, tenderly and gently. ‘’I’m sorry, too, alright? I shouldn’t have walked out like that. I love you, too. More than anything, okay? I love you so much. ’’

Tony smiles, bright and unassuming. ‘’I know you do.’’

~*~

‘’Of course I want everyone to be safe. But the success of this depends on my ability to be bait – and if that doesn’t work, we’re going to lose. And we can’t lose, Stephen, you know it as well.’’

They’re calm, this time. Tony is lying on the bed in Stephen’s room while the sorcerer is still sitting on his own side. He’s tempted to fall asleep, but this really is a discussion they need to have first. Stephen sighs. ‘’I still don’t think back-up is the worst plan.’’

‘’That’s what the Avengers are there for. I know you want to help. Do you think I want to leave you here? No one knows what’s going to happen, but we can’t take any further risks.’’

Tony can see Stephen mulling it over as he watches him from his side. ‘’Alright. I still don’t like it, but fine. Don’t think I’m not going to be in contact with you continuously, though.’’

Tony smiles and watches Stephen lie down next to him. ‘’I already thought that was the plan. I’m going to be fine, you know. It’s not the first time I’ve faced aliens, and at the rate my life is going, I doubt it’ll be the last.’’

‘’I won’t mind if it is,’’ Stephen murmurs, closing his eyes on the pillow. Tony watches him for a moment.

‘’I love you,’’ he says again, and feels the warmth blossom in his chest as Stephen’s lips crook into a soft smile. 

Stephen, even with his eyes closed, manages to find Tony’s hands and encompass them into his own, shuffling a tiny bit closer to him. ‘’I love you, too.’’

‘’Stephen?’’

‘’Yes, Tony?’’

‘’Hypothetically speaking – what _if_ something happened? If I die, fighting Galactus? Will anyone remember me?’’

Stephen opens one eye. Tony watches him, trying to see if he’ll freak out. It doesn’t happen – Stephen remains quiet, for a little while, and then starts caressing Tony’s hands while he speaks. 

‘’Hypothetically speaking,’’ he begins, ‘’no one would remember you. I would, and everyone else who has put a spell on themselves would – but not the ones who already don’t, no. You emit the energy of the curse that makes sure that everyone forgets, but even if you’ll die, traces of that energy will remain. It won’t suddenly go away – that’s why there’s so few options to destroy a curse. That’s also why it’s so difficult to remove a dead man’s curse. To destroy a curse, you need to make sure that you can counter-act the energy that comes from it, or destroy that energy completely and thus make sure the spell doesn’t exist anymore. The first, we can do sometimes. The second is practically impossible, and always horribly dangerous.’’

‘’So no one would remember?’’ Tony asks. ‘’Peter wouldn’t ever remember who I am?’’

‘’Not until Mordo lifted the curse, no,’’ Stephen admits, and tightens his hold on Tony’s hands. ‘’But it won’t matter, because you’re going to be alright.’’

Tony hums. ‘’Of course I’m going to be alright. Know why?’’

‘’Why?’’

‘’Because I love you.’’

Stephen grins. ‘’Now you’re just milking it.’’

Tony shrugs. ‘’Don’t pretend you don’t like it.’’

They’re silent for a moment. Tony almost thinks that Stephen has fallen asleep, when –

‘’I love you, too.’’

He’s still smiling as he drifts off.

~*~

Tony wakes up first. It’s somewhere in the afternoon, and he thinks that anyone could come to bother them at any moment, but that doesn’t stop him from lying there and soaking in Stephen’s presence. Even asleep, Stephen holds him tightly against his chest, and Tony nuzzles into his neck. Stephen mumbles something and shifts a bit, pressing Tony even closer.

Heat radiates off him, and Tony just closes his eyes again and enjoys the way their legs are tangled together. 

He’s still feeling bittersweet. It’s the worry for Galactus combining with the worry of never being remembered; and if something were to happen, he will never see his friends again. He won’t be able to hug Pepper, or to fly with Rhodey, or talk with Peter. He won’t ever play around in the lab with Bruce. And it’ll be only the Sanctum and a few individuals who remember him.

The curse, for better or worse, has brought him many things. He wouldn’t have Stephen, if it weren’t for that spell. He’d still be with Pepper, probably, and he’d have been happy – but he wants what he has now, and the thought of not knowing Stephen like he does, it aches. The thought of not having kissed him, and not having told him how much he means, it tears him up. 

He won’t let anything happen, but it’s still something extra to be worried about. He doesn’t know what Galactus will do, after all. He’s fast enough to outfly him, he’s certain, but there might be other circumstances. And what if Galactus eats Earth’s energy while Stephen is there? Tony doesn’t know what he would do if they failed, and he’d have to watch from a distance as the Sanctums lose their energy.

A cold shiver runs down his neck, but Stephen’s arms warm him up again right away. He presses a grateful kiss to the sorcerer’s collar bone, the only part he can reach without waking Stephen. 

‘’I love you,’’ he whispers once again. He does, he really does, and he wants Stephen to remember. Constantly remember, like no one else can. He wants there to be no doubt in the world before they go off to fight Galactus. 

Stephen hums, and Tony can feel the vibration in his body. ‘’Tony,’’ he mutters, still clearly asleep.

With some careful shifting, Tony retracts himself from Stephen’s arms slowly enough to not disturb his dreams. He enjoys cuddling, but he’s hungry and he won’t be able to go back to sleep anymore. He missed dinner, last night, as he wasn’t in the mood for it after their fight. Stephen came back just before breakfast, and he’s slept through lunch, probably. So he’ll get some food from the kitchen, just for the two of them, and they can make their own meal. 

He pulls on the sweatpants that Stephen never wears; he’s lost his own jeans in the mess and he doesn’t feel like searching. He does find his own shirt, so that’s at least something. The sweatpants are just a bit too long for him so he pulls them up to over his own navel, trying not to trip as he tiptoes out of the bedroom, through Stephen’s private room and down the hall.

He encounters Lydia, but she doesn’t recognize him, so he gets no more than a polite nod from her. Tony continues on his way to the kitchen – there’s only two or three sorcerers sitting there, finishing their lunch. Wong is among them, and that’s chance enough for Tony to sit down in the chair beside him.

‘’Seems like you made up,’’ Wong says, eyeing him and his sweatpants critically. He probably knows they’re not Tony’s; still, Tony doesn’t have enough shame left in him to care about parading his relationship with Stephen. No one is opposed to them. Besides, if any Master really had a problem with Tony and Stephen being together, he’d only flaunt it even more just out of spite.

Tony leans on the table with crossed arms. ‘’Maybe I stole his pants as retribution. Ever think about that? No, don’t worry, we’re all fine. Stephen’s still asleep, but we both missed a few meals. Care to convince Simeon to make me breakfast? He keeps forgetting if I ask him.’’

Wong sighs, but does call out to Simeon. After ordering some bread and cheese to be brought upstairs, he turns back to Tony. ‘’I’m assuming you fought about his demand to come with you on the ship?’’

Tony frowns. ‘’That’s how it started, yeah. He mentioned it to you?’’

‘’Before you came in. It was actually Wright’s idea.’’

‘’And Stephen wants to go along with something Alexander suggested?’’ Tony says sceptically. ‘’I know Stephen’s not exactly big on him. I don’t have all the details, but he seems annoyed whenever I mention him.’’

Wong’s lip tilts into a wry smile. ‘’There’s multiple reasons for that, but yes, you’re closer to Wright than Stephen generally cares to be. There’s some merit in the suggestion, which is why I told him, but I’d expected him to see the bigger picture and shoot down the idea. You talked him out of it, I hope? He’s only going along with it because he feels like he can’t do enough here.’’

‘’We agreed that they’re not coming,’’ Tony says. ‘’The Sanctum will be busy enough leading the entire thing as ground-control. He’ll have his hands full.’’

He sees Simeon going upstairs with the food that Wong has arranged for them. ‘’Are the Avengers ready?’’ Wong asks. ‘’I haven’t managed to meet with them ever since the lockdown.’’

‘’I haven’t seen much of them either, but I do think so.’’

Wong nods, and his time is taken up by a sorcerer that Tony doesn’t recognize. He takes the moment to slip away. He passes a now empty-handed Simeon on his way upstairs, and doesn’t bother greeting him. Simeon won’t know him anyway, and doesn’t seem in the mood for a chat. The plate of food is sitting on Stephen’s desk, but there’s no sign of Stephen yet.

Tony sneaks into the bedroom. The sunlight isn’t entirely filtered by the curtains, and a strip of light falls on Stephen’s back. He’s lying on his belly, tightly grasping the cushion where Tony was sleeping a few hours earlier. The blanket’s half on the ground, giving Tony a display of Stephen’s back muscles, slowly moving as he breathes in and out.

He smiles to himself, just watching Stephen sleep for a few moments. Eventually, he sits on the side of the bed, gently shaking the sorcerer’s shoulders. ‘’Hey, wake up,’’ he murmurs. ‘’Time to rise and shine. Time to eat, more specifically.’’

Stephen wakes with a groan and half-turns so that he’s lying on his side, the hairs on his belly tickling Tony’s arm. ‘’No,’’ he grunts, and unexpectedly grabs Tony’s arms and rolls so that he falls down with a surprised huff.

Tony finds himself partly lying on Stephen’s naked belly, and doesn’t manage to sit up as his lover keeps hold of him. ‘’Stephen, I’m hungry. There’s food I want to eat.’’

‘’Why are you wearing my clothes?’’ Stephen says, his voice muffled by the pillow. ‘’Why are you wearing clothes at all?’’

Tony rolls his eyes at that. ‘’Who knew you’d turn out like this? C’mon. We can eat now and then you can go back to bed, if you still want.’’

‘’Only if you lose the pants.’’

He laughs. ‘’Fine,’’ he says.

It’ll hardly be the first time he’s eaten without wearing pants.

~*~

Somewhere else, Karl Mordo lifts his head, his eyes dark and inscrutable. He lays down the document before him with a calm exterior that betrays nothing of what he is feeling inside. He is silent for a few long moments, his followers staring at him anxiously.

‘’We have been betrayed,’’ he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next one...


	35. Chapter 35

The sensors go off in the middle of the day. It’s cold but sunny, and Stephen was thinking so deeply that its warning almost comes as a shock. He’s just come back from teaching; now that all they can do is wait, it’s necessary to have as much of a normal schedule as possible. Without Master Haman, they all need to do a bit more. It’s impossible to have practical lessons, with the lockdown, but there’s enough theory to go over too.

Tony’s lounging on the couch, writing in his notebook, when it goes off. They both look up at once, meeting each other’s eyes.

‘’Where?’’ Stephen asks, standing up in urgency. They both know what the alarm means, and he doesn’t want Mordo to get away yet another time.

Tony fishes out his phone, watching as the map appears. He frowns. ‘’Right here,’’ he says, scrambling to his feet. ‘’They’re here, Stephen.’’

‘’Here?’’ he echoes incredulously. ‘’What do you mean, _here_?’’

‘’I mean right in front of the door,’’ Tony snaps, and throws open the door. ‘’I’m going to get my suit. Get Wong!’’

Stephen stares after him, debating and cursing internally for a while. Then his Cloak comes flying towards him, settling on his shoulders, and he runs out of the door after Tony. He doesn’t need to get Wong, only – he needs to gather everyone.

This time, Mordo isn’t going to get away.

~*~

There’s chaos in the Sanctum, but it’s orderly in a way that few things are. Stephen stands in front of the Sanctum, his hands raised and glowing. His Masters stand beside him, and Tony is hovering in the air in his Iron Man suit. The less experienced fighters are in the back, but they are no less determined than anyone else there.

There is a small group standing before them, hands raised in defensive gestures. Karl Mordo stands opposite Stephen in a similar way, barely moving.

‘’We do not mean any harm,’’ he says, clenching his teeth. ‘’Strange, stop this madness.’’

‘’Madness?’’ he repeats. ‘’What do you want, Mordo?’’

‘’I just want to talk,’’ Mordo says, clenching his fists. His followers, behind him, only exchange glances, but do not speak.

Stephen lets out a humourless huff of laughter. ‘’We can talk,’’ he says. ‘’We can talk when you’ve lifted the curses you’ve put on multiple people. We can talk when you’re in chains and won’t hurt the Sanctum anymore. We can talk when you’ve denounced your ways. We can talk when you and your followers have been accounted for Master Haman’s death, and when my Sanctum believes you’ve grovelled enough.’’

‘’Enough,’’ Mordo roars. ‘’Something more dangerous than you’ve ever faced is coming, Strange! And if we don’t stop it now, the entire planet will face the consequences of your petty childishness!’’

The entire street is silent, only focusing on the two of them. A portal opens, sizzling, with Minoru and Zhao stepping through. Their hands are raised, and she looks towards Mordo, but does not say a word. Stephen grimaces. ‘’We already know what is coming,’’ he says.

Mordo tilts his head, clearly in surprise. ‘’Galactus?’’

‘’How do _you_ know?’’ Minoru asks, eyes narrowed.

‘’I don’t have time for the details,’’ Mordo growls. ‘’We were betrayed by an ally I trusted. Let us come in, and I’ll explain everything.’’

‘’Lift the curse, and we’ll let you,’’ Stephen says. On the side, he can see Tony flying a little closer towards them.

Mordo straightens out. ‘’I will consider lifting it,’’ he says, and his followers shuffle behind him. ‘’I will consider it. I made some wrong choices – I admit that. I have been deceived for a long time, but I don’t mean for Earth to end. You have a questionable choice in friends, Strange, but if lifting a curse is what it takes to make you listen, then I will. And if I’ve ever been anything but your enemy –‘’

‘’You’ve never been _my_ enemy,’’ Stephen interrupts him. ‘’You were my friend, once. You made yourself out to be a villain, and then you became one to others. I’ve always hoped you’d return to us, but I see it’s been in vain. You’re nothing to me now, Mordo. Lift the curse, and I will listen to what you have to say.’’

‘’He promised to make me the Sorcerer Supreme,’’ Mordo says, taking a step closer. ‘’To attack the Sanctum so your followers would lose faith in you – to weaken your position and make the Sanctums see that you were not the true leader they needed. For you, to lose your faith in your own abilities. But it never worked, and I never wanted anyone to die – Strange, we have both been deceived. I swear I will cease my attacks if you just listen to me, right now.’’

‘’Lift the curse,’’ Stephen repeats, his voice cold as ice.

‘’Is this really our priority right now?’’ Master Chen says out loud.

‘’Stephen, he’s right,’’ Tony says, landing beside him. ‘’We need to know what he knows. Just don’t let him get away, and – shit. Wait. This can’t be real.’’

‘’What?’’ Stephen says, but he doesn’t dare to look beside him. He’s still fully focused on Mordo.

Tony turns to him, and now he can’t help but look. He removes his helmet, and Tony’s eyes are dark and anxious. ‘’Stephen, I just got a message from the Guardians. We have to go to the Compound and get to the spaceships – Galactus is coming. We don’t have long.’’

The world stills, but Tony’s words echo in Stephen’s mind. Galactus is coming.

~*~

Tony’s the one sending off the messages to the Avengers, short and to the point. He doesn’t have time for anything else – everyone’s panicking despite their preparations, and he feels like he’s on the brink of a breakdown as well. But when everyone is freaking out, you need a few precious people to regain control.

One of those people is Wong, who carefully steers everyone back to the Sanctums for what they need to do. Some of them teleport immediately to the Compound and Stark Industries, where they’d be expected when this happened. Stephen needs to get his head back in the game, as well, but he’s still outside while Tony fires off his messages. He knows that Stephen will focus soon enough, and leave to help out all the other sorcerers.

Minoru stands beside him, as Zhao disappears behind here to go back to their own Sanctum, most likely to warn everyone there as well. ‘’What do we do with Mordo?’’ Stephen asks in frustration, looking towards the group that seems fearful beyond measure. 

Mordo isn’t trying to get them under control; he just stands there, resigned to his fate, watching Stephen. They stand close enough to hear all of their conversation, but Tony doesn’t know how much it matters, right now. There is little Mordo can do to stop them, or help them. He’d thought he’d be infuriated when he saw the man who cursed him, but he has more important things to deal with right now. There is no time to be mad.

‘’Can’t we lock him somewhere?’’ Tony asks.

‘’Nowhere he’ll not get out of within minutes,’’ Minoru says darkly. ‘’They are a group of – twenty, around that number? We don’t have enough sorcerers to keep him under control, not while everyone is helping us deal with Galactus.’’

‘’After what happened to Master Haman, I’m not keen to let anyone guard them unless we are absolutely sure they won’t do anything,’’ Stephen mutters. ‘’We don’t have time for this – we have to meet with the Avengers.’’

‘’They’re prepping the ships,’’ Tony confirms. Vision keeps him updated from the Compound. The sorcerers haven’t arrived yet – Alexander is supposed to deal with the Compound. ‘’They’re ready to leave in five minutes.’’

Wong shows up in a portal beside them. ‘’I can’t seem to find Master Wright, but some of his Masters told me that he’s on his way,’’ he says immediately. ‘’Stephen, how are we going to deal with Mordo?’’

Tony turns to the sorcerer, who scrunches his face in aggravation. Without a warning, Stephen shakes his head, hopeless evident in his expression. ‘’We have to let him go!’’ he says in frustration. ‘’We can’t hold him and they can’t help us – we don’t have a choice. Tony, I’m –‘’

‘’Don’t,’’ Tony interferes sharply. ‘’I don’t care right now, alright? Let’s focus on this battle first, and we’ll get back to the curse after. Besides, I’m bait. Can’t be bait without the abnormal energy output I get from my curse.’’

Stephen gives him such a desperately miserable look that Tony almost regrets saying anything at all. Wong interrupts. ‘’If Mordo truly wants to help, he’ll come back.’’

They all look towards Mordo at that. The group is close enough to hear them, and all of them remain silent as they look at their leader. Mordo doesn’t lose eye contact with Stephen, and Tony can see the grim understanding they share. At Mordo’s curt nod, Stephen turns back to him. ‘’You all know what to do – I’m going to take Tony to the Compound and see him off. I’ll be back at the Sanctum if everything is dealt with. Make sure Wright ends up at the Compound, when you see him.’’

‘’Strange –‘’ Mordo says, but Stephen interrupts him before he can finish.

‘’We’ve already lost too much time. If you want to assist, you’ll stay out of the way.’’

‘’I know exactly what I need to do, and where I need to go,’’ Mordo says with a dark look in his eyes, and opens a portal. Tony starts, but none of the others go after them, so he just looks at Stephen.

The sorcerer looks determined and opens a portal of his own, even as Mordo disappears with his group. ‘’We can’t deal with him. Wong, make sure everyone’s on top of their task. Tony, come with me.’’

Tony doesn’t hesitate to hop through the portal with Stephen. He goes in first and Bleecker Street disappears before his eyes as he suddenly finds himself in the carrier in Avengers Compound. There’s an unbearable noise as the planes are starting up, and he scrunches his nose in response to it.

A warm body appears behind him, but Tony doesn’t have time to say anything to Stephen as the first Avengers appear. ‘’Master Strange!’’ Steve says, coming to meet them. ‘’And you are –‘’

‘’Forget it,’’ Tony says. ‘’Are the ships ready?’’

Steve blinks at him, but the alarm of the situation seems to be enough for him to ignore Tony’s insolence for now. Rhodey and Natasha appear behind him, but don’t notice Stephen and Tony standing there as they enter the ship. He can see Peter entering as well, and his heart clenches. He’d hoped the teenager would think the better of it – or all the adults around him – but no one has managed to convince him to change his course.

He should’ve known. He knows exactly how stubborn Peter is.

‘’Almost,’’ Steve says. ‘’We’re leaving in two minutes. The other ships will follow after us. Wanda is staying here.’’

Tony can see her, saying goodbye to Vision. He feels for her – it’s not easy to leave someone and fight the same battle, but somewhere else, without knowing for sure they’re alright.

That’s how he’s feeling right now. ‘’I’m your bait, and I’m coming with you,’’ Tony says. ‘’Let’s go, I’ll leave again once we enter space. No questions, we don’t have time for that.’’

Steve frowns, but Tony walks past him. Stephen follows easily, taking his arm as he passes by. ‘’Be careful,’’ Stephen says, his pale eyes intent.

Tony feels a surge of affection go through him. ‘’I promise,’’ he says, and stands on his toes for a last kiss. ‘’I love you, alright? Let’s kick some ass together.’’

Stephen smiles faintly, and lets go of him. Tony watches him, and how he masks his feelings into a neutral expression. Normally, he wouldn’t let him get away with it, but they don’t have time to argue. Tony’s ride to space is leaving soon, and they both have things they need to do. 

‘’I love you, too,’’ Stephen says, taking a step back. It’s almost as if he’s trying out to see if he can bear the distance between them. Tony tilts his head, smiling sadly.

‘’I’m going to see you soon,’’ he promises.

Stephen just nods, and Tony turns. All the Avengers are getting inside already, only Wanda remaining on the outside. Tony has a harder time turning away than he’d think, and steps inside the ship. Almost all of them are there: Vision, Steve, Natasha, Rhodey and Peter. Only Wanda and Bruce are missing, both for obvious reasons. 

‘’Who the heck are you?’’ Rhodey demands, rising as Tony enters.

He winces, but Vision already stands up. ‘’He’s supposed to be here,’’ he says calmly. ‘’He has been cursed and currently stays at the New York Sanctum with doctor Strange, and he will assist in the fight.’’

‘’Right,’’ Tony says, and takes the furthest seat. He watches out of the window, hoping to see Stephen. Instead, he catches a portal disappearing in the middle of the hangar, and takes a deep breath.

This has to work, because he has to see Stephen again. He prays they’ll manage to do what it takes – that they’ll manage to defeat Galactus, and that Mordo won’t cause any mayhem at the Sanctum. He has to keep believing that their plan will work, because they’ve planned it all out in the details. His weapons are among the most dangerous he’s ever made, and the arc reactors will keep the ships running. They’re fully prepared, and Tony looks straight ahead.

Rhodey steers them into space, and the Compound below them gets smaller until he can’t even see it anymore. Peter comes to stand next to him, watching the world below them shrink with huge eyes and trembling breaths.

‘’It’s going to be fine, Peter,’’ Tony murmurs. ‘’Hey, it’ll be alright. This is no scarier than – uh, than taking exams. There’s experienced people here, and you’re not doing this all by yourself, and we’ve prepared all we can.’’

He keeps talking until Peter calms down a bit. The kid chuckles breathily, his hands gripping the railing so tightly that his hands are stark white. ‘’I don’t even remember why I wanted to come so badly,’’ he stutters. ‘’What can I do on a spaceship? What use do I have?’’

‘’Well, we’re going to need competent and brave people to face this,’’ Tony says. ‘’People who can work under the stress of this kind of threat. Believe me, there aren’t many people who can. You’re one of them. I know you’re afraid now, but anyone else would’ve peed their pants and jumped out before we even landed. You’re a brave man, Peter. You’re intelligent, steadfast and quick on your feet, and I couldn’t think of anyone else who I’d rather have beside me in a spaceship to fight a gigantic alien.’’

Peter smiles tightly. ‘’Thanks. I don’t even know who you are.’’

‘’Look at the notes on your phone,’’ Tony offers. Peter frowns at him but he does as he has been told, and when he sees his eyebrows rise even higher.

‘’This is – that’s you? I know you?’’ he says disbelievingly. ‘’Are you kidding me?’’

Tony only shrugs, and watches Earth disappear below him. Space is quiet and cold, and all the Avengers are contemplative and anxious. Behind them, he hears Vision and Steve messing with the communicators. They’re connected to all the other ships, but have some trouble getting through to the Guardians. 

With a pat on Peter’s back, he rises. ‘’Don’t worry too much, kid. I’m not going to let anything happen to you, alright?’’ After that, he walks towards the others.

Steve already seems to have forgotten him and clearly starts, but all of them are silent as Tony finds the right signal for them. Peter Quill’s voice comes through all of a sudden, clear as day. 

‘’Hey, Quill,’’ Tony says, despite the fact that the man won’t remember who he is at all. ‘’Can I talk to Gamora?’’

There’s a bit of a scuffle on the other side, and he can’t hear what is being said, but after a few seconds Gamora’s voice comes through clearly. ‘’ _Hey, Tony,_ ’’ she says. ‘’ _You have eyes on Galactus?_ ’’

‘’Not yet,’’ he answers. ‘’We just left the atmosphere, and we’re on our way. Has he seen you yet?’’

‘’ _No, we’re safe for now. He’ll see you coming, though. You have to be prepared immediately. Are you still on a ship?_ ’’

‘’I’m with the Avengers now. Steve, say hi. I’m going to get off in a few minutes and take the lead on this – I want to see if the suit holds up.’’

‘’ _Copy that. Be careful, and give us a signal when you’re ready. Everything is fully loaded here._ ’’ 

Tony can hear Rocket shout something in the back. He nods and takes a step back as the other Avengers start communicating with the other ships. They’re full of military men, following their ship. Tony just hopes that they’ll have enough ships to make an impact on Galactus – they’ll have to hit him hard and in the right spot if they want to have a chance. 

The Avengers are the only one with space suits, but it’s still unclear if they will even be able to use them. Tony is bait, after all, and most of the Avengers aren’t used to flying. They might get in the way, and if they can’t come into space – well, they’ll just be leading a ship. It might have been completely unnecessary for them to come, in that case, but Tony knows that they would have done it anyway. The Avengers are here to protect the world, and even if they can’t do anything personally – they wouldn’t let anyone else put themselves in danger without doing the same thing. It probably didn’t even occur to them not to come.

‘’Are you going to leave?’’ Vision asks, eyeing him worriedly.

‘’Might as well,’’ Tony says. ‘’I’m too easy a target if I only get out when we see him. It’s too much of a risk. I’m going to get off here and fly ahead. There’s enough power in the suit to last me for a long while.’’

Vision nods, and all the Avengers turn to watch him. ‘’Fly in what, exactly?’’ Natasha asks sceptically, crossing her arms. They only have enough space suits for the others, and didn’t bring one for Tony. After all, they’ve completely forgotten he doesn’t need one.

Tony doesn’t answer her but pulls on his hoodie instead. His suit appears, gliding all over his body until he’s wrapped in it fully. ‘’Mother of –‘’ Rhodey breathes, and Tony feels some satisfaction from seeing their responses. ‘’You made my suit, didn’t you?’’

‘’Yep,’’ Tony answers easily. ‘’Now, this is my exit. See you soon and good luck, guys.’’

He moves to the back of the ship before they can answer. Closing the door behind them, he opens the space-door, stepping out of the ship and into the dark vastness of space. For a second, he only floats, and he’s afraid that he’s not going to be able to breathe.

But he takes a gasp, and then another one, and starts his thrusters. And flying in space is like nothing he’s done before. He grins, and gets ahead of the Avengers’ ship.

~*~

Stephen doesn’t want to see Tony take off, so he disappears before. Not that it matters; from where he appears on the Bleecker Street, he can still see the ships disappear into space, one of them holding the man he loves.

He doesn’t have the time to worry about it for long. Wong reaches him before he’s been back even ten seconds. ‘’Do we still know where Mordo is?’’ he asks anxiously.

Unfortunately, Wong shakes his head at that. ‘’He disappeared and hasn’t come back,’’ he says. ‘’We found Wright, though – he should be at the Compound, now, to help out communication there. Did you see him?’’

Stephen shakes his head. ‘’I saw Tony off and came right back here.’’

Together, they walk inside the Sanctum. There’s a whirl of activity going on. Even if they haven’t joined the big fight, there is plenty they can do here. Lots of sorcerers are helping out at the Compound and at Stark Industries, from where they’re allowed to fire the weapons at Galactus. The others are trying to enhance the shields – to mute the energy coming from Earth, in a way, and making it less of a target. It’s an incredibly tiring way of spending energy, and it would be dangerous for them all to do it, so Stephen just guides them.

It may not even matter, in the long run. But if there’s any chance, they’ll take it. They’ll give anyone who went on a ship a chance to fight and to win. And they’ll do it at any risk to themselves. 

Stephen glances upwards, though there’s only a ceiling now. Somewhere in the skies, Tony is preparing for a battle against a being whose likeness they haven’t seen before. He has let Tony go and be the hero, at the risk of his own heart.

He trusts in Tony. Tony would never hurt him, and so Tony will return to him. It’s the only way to get through what is going to come next.

He turns to Wong. ‘’Let’s do our bit,’’ he says.

Wong nods tightly, and they move.


	36. Chapter 36

‘’ _Can you hear me?_ ’’ a familiar voice comes, static at first before the sound settles. ‘’ _Tony? Are you there?_ ’’

Tony flies through space easily, trying to make sure he doesn’t get too far ahead of the ships. ‘’Hey, Stephen,’’ he says, but he feels easier hearing the sorcerer’s voice over his comm. The devices work perfectly even in space, despite the distance between them. ‘’I’m just hanging, what’s up?’’

‘’ _No sign of Galactus yet, I take it?_ ’’ Stephen asks dryly.

‘’No, but we should be near. Everything alright on your side?’’

‘’ _So far, yes. I just wanted to check if this worked, but I have to leave. Be careful out there. I love you._ ’’

‘’Love you, too,’’ Tony mutters, and takes a turn. Earth is a ball of blue from here, and it’s a breath-taking sight despite the urgency of the situation. Stephen disconnects, and he feels a bit lonelier for it immediately. 

For a few minutes, they all fly further away from home, journeying towards a danger to them all. Tony almost starts to doubt the truth of it all. Space is silent and empty; it reminds him of the Battle of New York, years ago, when he’d been here for less than a minute. Even then, the silence made him hopeless and desperate, and he trembles in his suit despite the heating FRIDAY provides.

Suddenly, something changes. A blue light comes drifting towards them, mystical and cold; Tony narrows his eyes at it, even as he kills his thrusters. Immediately, he starts drifting, waiting for the creature to appear.

‘’ _Tony, we have eyes on you and the fleet,_ ’’ Gamora’s voice comes, connecting with him. ‘’ _You have to move!_ ’’

Tony squints. The blue ball of light grows until it’s suddenly much closer, and a huge glowing being appears before him. Galactus doesn’t look like a man, but he’s more shaped like one than Tony expected. His eyes are glowing yellow slits, sparkling in the dark of space, and the blue light forms a kind of body that’s more of a hybrid between an octopus and a man than anything else. 

As the yellow eyes suddenly rest on his, Tony’s heart almost stops in fear. He curses to himself and starts his thrusters again; he flies away from the other ships immediately. The Guardians’ ship is on the other side of Galactus and becomes visible to him just then; he takes a turn so that Galactus won’t aim at them, either.

It seems to work. Galactus opens his mouth in what Tony thinks is a roar. He can’t tell, obviously, as the sound never reaches his ears. Still, Galactus’ eyes are fixed on him. The upside to space is that Tony has enough places to fly towards without being caught; he’s faster than he’s ever been.

There’s also a lot of downsides, unfortunately. He has to keep Galactus close enough for the others to fire at him and destroy him, without tempting him into actually eating the ships. Most importantly, he has to make sure Galactus doesn’t actually get him, and as it turns out, the creature is not so slow for something that huge.

The thrusters are strained with the pressure, but they hold, as Tony knew they would. Perfectly agile, he glides through space, trying to keep Galactus’ eyes on him.

It’s almost a surprise to see the ships start firing at Galactus simultaneously. Half a dozen ships from Earth start firing from one side, slowly spreading out more, while the Guardians fire from the other side. Tony can only hear the low humming from his own suit, and it’s like he’s watching a movie that has been muted.

The effect is immediate, however. Galactus turns away from Tony in anger, raising his hands. One of the ships is too close and he rams his hand-like beams on it, only barely scraping it as the pilot moves quickly enough to avoid being destroyed. Galactus follows it around, and Tony spurs into action.

It’s a whirlwind of activity, and Tony comes in between the ship and Galactus before he can decide to follow it. He halts in front of the being for a second, enough for Galactus to narrow his slits at the suit and make a grab for it. Tony flies out of the way easily enough. He’s a good enough bait, evidently; Galactus wants to eat his energy more badly than he wants to get the ship’s.

It’s a cat-and-mouse game, but it’s one that can’t last forever. The ships keep firing, and Galactus keeps being interrupted from trying to catch Tony. He swipes at the ships, making them fly away further, until they’re barely close enough to aim at him anymore, and then the whole thing starts over again.

Tony’s getting tired and his head aches, and the battle has barely started. Nothing they do seems to have much of an impact on Galactus, and he wonders at the Guardians’ story. If Galactus won’t be harmed by their weapons, they’ve already lost. They seem to annoy him enough, but is it enough to overpower him?

There has not yet been a single shot from Earth, and he wonders at that. The most heavy-duty cannons are installed on that blue globe in the distance, and he knows that they are. So why aren’t they firing?

He’d make contact with Stephen again, to ask him what’s going on, but he really doesn’t have time. Undoubtedly, one of the other ships will already be in touch with the command centre and have asked the same question. It wasn’t exactly the plan to let them wait this long. Tony just hopes that everything will be sorted out, because he doesn’t exactly think they’re going to be able to do this by themselves.

The Avengers’ ship is firing at Galactus again, aiming right at his face. The creature shields it with his glowing hand, and swaps at them with the other. It scratches the surface and the ship moves, unluckily hitting another ship. All of them stop shooting at once, and Tony’s eyes grow wide as Galactus takes the opportunity to move closer and get another hit at the Avengers’ ship.

Tony curses and quickly moves in the way, but he’s not sure that he’ll be bait enough to distract Galactus this time.

‘’ _Tony, get away from there!_ ’’ Gamora says. ‘’ _We have to move closer – Earth can’t reach Galactus from here._ ’’

‘’What?’’ Tony repeats in disbelief, but he doesn’t move. Galactus swaps at him and Tony ducks under his arm and blasts at him. If he can get Galactus to be mad at him, maybe he’ll forget about the other ship and chase him again. ‘’I’m not letting him hit this ship, what do you want me to do?’’

Galactus scrunches his nose and tries to get another hit at him. Tony only evades it by chance, flying the right way as he blasts the being right in the face.

Rocket is the next to speak in his ear. ‘’ _You gotta get him closer to Earth so they can shoot at him.’_ ’

‘’Right,’’ Tony says, breathing loudly. ‘’I can do that. Hey, Galactus, here’s a tasty energy bar. Come and get it!’’

He turns on his heels and flies away. Evidently, all the other ships have gotten the same memo, because they all backtrack to where they came from. Tony feels uneasy leading him closer to Earth, but they’ll need to get out the big guns if they ever want to defeat him. They aren’t doing anything but annoying Galactus.

He has to stick behind the ships to make sure Galactus doesn’t go over them, so he flies in circles. Galactus treats him much like an aggravating fly, swiping at him. It’s clear as day that, while Galactus is immensely powerful, he is mostly focused on his hunger. He doesn’t care about eating the energy from the ships, not while Tony is in his reach – maybe it’d be worse if the weapons actually hurt him, but Tony doubts it. Galactus doesn’t seem to believe anything can harm him, but is in desperate need of a Tony-sized snack.

‘’Are we close enough?’’ Tony asks after one particular vicious swipe that had left him trying to change his course and almost flying right into one of the ships. He’s too close by them for his liking, but if he wants Galactus to come closer, he can’t move out of their way.

‘’ _They’re aiming now,_ ’’ Gamora says grimly. ‘’ _Tony, try to make him stretch out. We need to find his weak spot. Peter, fire!_ ’’

Tony wordlessly complies, moving up to above Galactus. He lingers just above his eyes so that the being will still see him and won’t move onto other targets. For a few moments, Galactus moves his bright hands towards him, but frowns and lowers again. In his frustration, he throws open his arms, and hits one of the ships.

It loses control at once, but doesn’t stop firing in time. Moving unexpectedly, it hits the Guardians’ ship that was on the other side of Galactus. The firing stops as the ship stills, but the damage is already done. Tony curses, and lowers himself so that Galactus won’t hit at anything else.

‘’Are you alright?’’ he asks over the comm. There’s a single moment of silence before an answer comes from Gamora.

‘’ _He hit our engine. We can fix it, but not from inside. Tony, can you keep his attention away from us? Peter’s going to go outside and repair it._ ’’

‘’I’ll try, but be fast about it,’’ Tony says, and flies up again. Just as he starts despairing his ability to keep the creature away from any of the ships in time, he sees a ball of light coming towards them.

It hits Galactus square in the middle, and he drifts back. Tony isn’t great at reading alien expressions, but he seems pained. Hope surges in his chest; if their shots hurt, then surely they must be able to drive Galactus away, at least. Every creature in the universe has the fight-or-flight instinct, and Galactus can’t be an exception.

It’s not as easy as all that. Galactus seems to choose to fight, and has forgotten all about Tony. His yellow eyes are focused on Earth, and he starts moving in that direction. 

Tony connect with the Avengers’ ship immediately. ‘’Vision, we have to keep him here,’’ he says without a greeting. ‘’Shoot him from behind. Tell everyone else to draw him to us; I’ll keep him distracted and draw him back. Prepare to fly away quickly; the Guardians are out for now, and we need to give them time to fix their engine.’’

None of the Avengers have put on their space suits and come outside. Tony can imagine why: they already have too many targets, and a hit from Galactus will mean a kill. The space suits are too little protection, and Galactus is smarter and faster than they'd hoped. It’s too much of a danger to come out. Tony is meant to be the only bait, today, and the Avengers can do little but watch and aim, like anyone else. Their use is limited to what their spaceship can do, now - they may be Earth's Mightiest Heroes, but today, they can do nothing, despite what they'd hoped. He spares a moment to think of Peter, and wonders what the kid is thinking of it all.

‘’ _Understood_ ,’’ Vision says crisply, and breaks the connection. Tony starts firing, too, blasting at where Galactus’ spine is supposed to be, if he even has any. It doesn’t do much, but the other ships come to rest beside him and shoot, too, and he turns again. That’s the moment another rocket hits him, and he stretches himself out in pain.

That’s when Tony sees something. Galactus’ entire body glows a mysterious blue, but in the centre of him, just above his belly – something’s shining a little brighter. Hitting Galactus in the head hadn’t done much good, but that small glowing bit seems to hurt more.

He creates an immediate connection between all of the ships and ground-control. ‘’Hit him just above the belly,’’ he says urgently. ‘’It’s a weak spot. Aim for that.’’

Before they can answer anything, he breaks the connection again and flies as Galactus comes towards them. His pain comes from Earth, but they are the only visible nuisances for him. All the ships start shooting at the place Tony indicated, and it seems to make the creature livid with anger. 

The ship that was hit earlier has become too slow to escape Galactus’ wrath. He grabs it with one hand and opens his mouth. Electric blue energy seems to disappear from the ship and into Galactus’ mouth; the creature shudders with newfound energy. The ship tries to shoot into Galactus’ mouth, and he seems to roar with anger as his blue glow dissipates a bit, but it’s too late to do anything impactful; the ship powers down and starts floating freely in space. Tony feels ice cold with anxiety as he tries to make contact with the ship.

Only static answers him, and he doubts he will get an answer anytime soon. Galactus releases the ship and makes a grab for the Avengers’ ship. They evade his chaotic grab, but hit the damaged ship in their attempt to get away. Tony watches them collide and shoots once again at Galactus. Galactus turns back to him, just like Tony wanted, but in his haste of trying to get Galactus back, he’s come too close back to the Guardians.

Galactus shoots forward but only hits the Guardians’ ship. Peter Quill, on top of it, becomes the first victim of the slap. He doesn’t take the full force, but is too late to duck away fully and is grasped. He falls of the ship, and only drifts in space. Tony’s eyes widen. He wants to help but can’t get close without having Galactus injure them even further, so he flies away instead. Galactus follows, but is soon again distracted by another rocket coming from Earth. 

The ships are all firing at him, and in combination with the rockets from Earth, he hardly seems to know where to go anymore. Tony takes the moment to fly out to Quill, but the man is unconscious. He takes him in his arms and flies him back to the Guardians. They open the back door for him easily.

As the space-gate closes and the shield protecting the Guardians from space is lifted, Gamora comes running towards them. ‘’Is he alive?’’ she asks.

Tony already had FRIDAY running a quick test. ‘’He’s breathing, but he has a head injury,’’ Tony tells her quickly. ‘’I’m sorry – did you manage to get the engines running?’’

‘’It’s not fixed yet,’’ Rocket says, with a worried glance at Quill. ‘’Not to be an ass, Stark, but seeing as you’re bait, you might wanna consider –‘’

‘’Yeah, I’m leaving again,’’ Tony says. ‘’Don’t send anyone else out until we’ve dealt with Galactus. It’s too dangerous.’’

Without waiting for an answer, he activates the shield between him and the Guardians and opens the space to door. Flying out back into the darkness, he aims at Galactus at once.

The creature seems to have regained its rage, and the ships have come too close while shooting. With a single swipe, he hits one of them, and with some concern Tony sees that he’s managed to hit the Avengers’ ship. It had become a victim while Tony was helping Quill.

‘’I don’t think so,’’ he mutters to himself, even as he sees the fire starting in the ship. His friends are in there – Peter, and Rhodey are in there. It’s his old team, and there’s people he cares about. He won’t let Galactus eat them like he ate the other ship, and he gets in between. He can’t fix the Avengers’ ship, but he can make sure that Galactus won’t get to them.

He gets far too close, but it’s for a good cause. Galactus gets a sniff of the energy emitting from him and his eyes narrow at Tony. His hunger drives him forward, still, and Tony raises his repulsors and hits him right in the middle. The ships start firing again, and he can see the shots go just barely past him and hit the creature. Galactus makes himself bigger. Rage threatens to overcome his hunger, and Tony knows exactly how to get his attention.

He forms a huge hammer with one of his arms and aims right for Galactus’ middle, hitting him painfully. Galactus doubles over, and it’s good to know that even alien creatures can’t handle gut-punches. Tony has to back away and almost gets crushed between the glowing limbs, but he’s been flying for enough years to have the hang of this now.

‘’ _We’re going to lose all power soon,_ ’’ Natasha says. Tony doesn’t know if it’s aimed at him, but it’s more likely that she’s speaking to all ships. ‘’ _We need to end this, now._ ’’

Thing is, Tony’s not sure if they can end it as fast. The Avengers’ ship is badly damaged, and some of the other ships are scraped too. The Guardians aren’t able to move, with a broken engine that they can’t fix right now. Another rocket hits Galactus, and all the ships have to retreat to make sure they’re not eaten.

An idea forms in Tony’s mind, and dread follows it. The glow surrounding Galactus is his shield, he starts to believe; powerful shots will harm it, but it’s more like bruising him. If they really want to defeat him, they’ll have to destroy him from the inside out. The impaired ship, the one of which Galactus had eaten the energy, had shot into his mouth and that seemed to do more damage than their shooting at his outside had done, ever since they started.

And there’s really only one way to get him from the inside out that Tony can think of. Only one that will work quickly enough.

‘’How much energy do we have left, FRI?’’ Tony asks quietly. ‘’Still enough for a good blast, you think?’’

FRIDAY doesn’t answer verbally, but shows him the answer on his HUD. It should be enough; flying around in space hasn’t taken up as much energy. He’ll have to give it everything he has, but maybe it’ll work. Especially if he can calculate when the next rocket comes.

FRIDAY gives him that information, too, and Tony should have a few minutes before they manage to have one hit Galactus again. It’s a careful process, but he doesn’t see another way. One ship has been completely destroyed; a few others are too damaged to do much good. 

He connects with the Avengers’ ship first.

‘’Hey, guys,’’ he says, his voice low. ‘’You have to go back to Earth. I think I have a plan, but your ship’s not going to hold for much longer. Hey, Rhodey, I know you don’t remember me, but keep rocking, okay? Make sure that Pepper’s happy. I know you can do that. And Peter – uh, stay in school. You’re a much better man than I could ever hope to be, and I’m proud of you.’’

‘’ _Tony, what are you going to do?_ ’’ Vision asks, and there’s an edge of concern to his voice. Tony closes the connection without answering, and closes his eyes for a second to get his mind back in the game. Then he opens them, ready to do what must be done.

He moves forward, sending out messages to all ships to leave. Slowly, one by one, they back away - the sorcerers must be telling them that Tony exists and can be trusted. He is glad for their involvement, or he wouldn't have achieved anything. Galactus gets Tony back into sight, and moves for him. Tony stays where he is, until the creature can get to him, calculating the exact distance.

He connects to another device. ‘’ _Tony?_ ’’ Stephen asks, and his voice is low and worried. Tony can’t believe he’s going to do this. Tony can’t believe he’s going to be such a bastard, but he has to be. There’s no other way before they’re not going to be able to hold back Galactus anymore. If they can’t stop Galactus, Earth will pay the price.

It’s better that Tony pays the price. It’s just unfortunate that Stephen will have to, as well.

‘’I’m going to do something stupid,’’ he croaks. ‘’I love you, Stephen, alright? Just – there’s no other way. I love you so much, and I’m so sorry. You deserve more than me. And I know I promised to come home, but – but I think I lied.’’

‘’ _Tony,_ ’’ Stephen says, sounding more frantic than Tony has ever heard him. ‘’ _Tony, no, wait, there’s another rocket coming in a minute – just keep him busy, whatever you have planned, it’s not necessary. Please, Tony. I love you._ ’’

‘’I’m sorry,’’ Tony rasps, and he feels himself trembling. Galactus is ever moving closer, his yellow eyes focused on him. Tony just wishes he could see Stephen, one last time. It’s not fair, how this has to end – none of it is fair. ‘’Stephen, can you do me one favour? I want you to do one thing, just for me.’’

‘’ _Tony –_ ‘’

‘’Give me this one last thing,’’ he interrupts him. ‘’Stephen, release yourself from the spell that makes you remember me, alright? You have a job to do, and there’s going to be so few people to remember me. I don’t want you to go through this alone. Please – release the spell.’’

‘’ _I can’t,_ ’’ Stephen says, and he sounds so heartbroken that Tony just wants to gather him up in his arms and tell him that everything will be alright. But it won’t be alright. Nothing’s ever going to be alright again. And if he wants to spare Stephen of the pain, the sorcerer will have to forget.

‘’You’re going to have to forget me,’’ Tony tells him, and that’s the moment Galactus reaches him. Without any resistance, he manages to take Tony. He looks at him for a long moment, and Tony closes his eyes. ‘’Do it for me.’’

The connection breaks as Galactus starts eating his energy. Tony sees his levels draining, and waits. For a second, he’s afraid he miscalculated everything. That the rocket won’t come on time, and that he’ll be drained before he can do anything.

The rocket hits exactly as Tony starts feeling faint. Galactus lets go of him, his mouth still open, and Tony starts up his thrusters with a stutter and flies into the glowing mass with the last remaining power he has. The blue core is even brighter inside the creature’s translucent body; he aims for it and he can hear the whining pitch of his suit fully loading. The arc reactor shines even brighter than the core when he releases the beam.

Combined with the explosion from without, he can see the matter start trembling. The glowing spot in Galactus seems to be a heart, and Tony deliriously imagines that it’s a small man screaming out in agony. An effervescent being, the heart of something that Galactus used to be before he grew to be the Devourer of Worlds. Tony stretches out an armoured hand, because it seems unfair to him that the soul will have to suffer for the hunger of such an unrelenting monster. 

The spot disappears, resting its eyes, just as Tony reaches for it. He takes a loud breath as he sees it dispel, and lowers his arm.

Everything is bright blue for a moment, and Tony closes his eyes against the agonizing brilliance. Azure spots swim in front of his eyes, and pain builds up in his body. He thinks he yells, but he can’t hear anything anymore as the agony grows intolerable.

Galactus dissipates with a roar that goes unheard in the darkness, leaving only a human in an Iron Man suit floating lifelessly in space.


	37. Chapter 37

Stephen sits in the dark corner, trembling, his eyes closed. The door is locked and guarded by a spell of his own device; the Masters are knocking. He can clearly hear Wong’s voice, and it’s so desperate that Stephen firmly believes he’s ready to bring down the door and every spell Stephen can concoct within minutes.

_Give me this one last thing. Stephen, release yourself from the spell that makes you remember me, alright?_

He can still hear Tony’s voice clear as day. 

_You’re going to have to forget me. Do it for me._

It would be so, so easy. Stephen looks at his hands, his broken, useless, scarred hands, the ones that can guide a spell that will lift his own so easily. 

He can’t do it, and he remains seated, as the Masters bang on his door.

~*~

_A while earlier_

‘’What do you mean, we can’t hit him?’’ Minoru asks, her voice sharp as steel and her face pale as she stands beside Stephen, ranting at the anxious man before the controls. He looks like the kind of man that is not used to crises such as these, but Stephen can’t work up any sympathy for him right now. They have to face this being and more importantly, they have to _shoot at him with Tony’s rockets_. That was the entire goal of this venture.

‘’They’re too far away!’’ he squeals, and points at the satellite. There’s only a few light visible in the sky, and if Stephen didn’t know that faint glowing spot was Galactus, he might have asked why it’s so dangerous. From far away, it merely looks like a peculiar star. ‘’We can’t aim at anything that far, not without being sure we won’t hit the ships!’’

‘’ _This is the Guardians of the Galaxy to Earth_ ,’’ Peter Quill says over the communication link. ‘’ _We could really use some help here. Are you going to fire at him or what?_ ’’

‘’Guardians,’’ Stephen says, moving the man with a flick of his hand and taking place in front of the microphone. ‘’You have to get Galactus closer to Earth. We can’t fire at him, he’s too far away for us. Do you think we can do that?’’

He hears some rumbling, and a few seconds later he hears Gamora’s voice. ‘’ _Tony’s luring him away. We’ve informed the other ships, we’re trying to get closer to you. Tell the Avengers when he’s close enough, they’re in between Earth and Galactus._ ’’

‘’Understood,’’ Stephen says. ‘’Minoru, can you stay here? I’m going to check if they’re managing at the Avengers Compound.’’

She nods, taking over his position. The man glares at him, but Stephen ignores him and creates a portal. Within seconds, he’s in the Compound. Alexander Wright stands there, dealing with the ships from this place, and he is anxiously staring at the same live-feed of the glittering spot in the sky. ‘’They’re moving backwards,’’ Wright says as he sees Stephen approaching. ‘’Your man seems to be doing a great job at distracting him.’’

A surge of pride fills Stephen chest, but there’s worry in the same realization. The fight has not been fought yet, and they need to remain vigilant. ‘’Just make sure we can start firing the rockets soon,’’ he says. ‘’We need the heavy artillery for this one.’’

‘’Definitely,’’ Wright agrees. ‘’Hey, I heard Mordo came to you before the fight. Did he say anything?’’

Stephen frowns. ‘’No. We had to let them go when Galactus arrived. Have you seen him?’’

‘’No, I merely wanted to know.’’

‘’Mordo isn’t a problem right now, Master Wright. Focus on this first, and we’ll locate him afterwards.’’

Wright doesn’t seem content, but that is hardly Stephen’s concern. He does not have the time to care about Mordo right now, and neither is he in the mood. As long as Mordo isn’t attacking his Sanctum, he doesn’t have the energy to invest a second more into that problem that he can avoid.

He watches next to Wright for a few minutes as the speck moves slightly closer. He can’t see the ships from this far away, but he assumes they’re there. Another feed appears next to the one he’s looking at, zooming in. The glowing dot has the vague shape of a man with too many arms, and he can see the ships shooting even as he’s trying to hit something out of the sky. 

The Iron Man suit is too small to see, but Stephen knows Tony has to be flying out there somewhere. He lets out a deep breath. ‘’Are they close enough now?’’ he asks.

Wright nods.

~*~

There’s only a few sorcerers left at the Sanctum, all sitting on the grass and holding hands as they mutter out their spell. Stephen doesn’t have the heart to interrupt them. Their spell is not going to be strong enough to stop Galactus, if their first defence fails, but there is nothing else that they can do.

Wong stands beside the small group, watching over them. When Stephen appears, he turns to him. ‘’Is everything going according to plan?’’ he asks. His voice sounds calm, but Stephen knows him well enough by now to know how apprehensive his friend is.

‘’So far, yes,’’ Stephen answers. ‘’We’re shooting at him. The Sanctums still guarded?’’

Wong nods. ‘’No problems so far.’’

They’re both silent, comforting each other with their presence. Much of the work is out of their hands now – Stephen can’t do anything to harm Galactus, or shoot at him. He can only listen to others do the job he so desperately wants to help with. He can only watch the ships hit and get hit, and hope that it’ll be enough, in the end.

They are in the middle of the storm, and they are waiting for it to be over. In a way, it’s even worse than waiting for the storm – at least he’d had the calm to be comforted by. He still had Tony, who is up fighting his battles now.

The Cloak of Levitation pats Stephen on the arm, and he lets it. ‘’If they don’t manage it,’’ Wong starts quietly. ‘’If Galactus passes – you’ve been a good friend, Stephen, and a great Sorcerer Supreme. I am proud to have fought beside you.’’

It’s not an option – but it needs to be said. He nods quickly, and awkwardly pats Wong on the back. ‘’Me too. I couldn’t have hoped for a better side-kick than you.’’

‘’You’re an ass,’’ Wong says, but he pats Stephen back, and they stand like that for a while.

~*~

Both of them go to every control centre they have, checking the continuous battle. Stephen watches as the Guardians have to give up the fight, as their engine is damaged. He hears about Peter Quill going out to fix it and being injured, Tony coming to his rescue as the other ships continue firing.

The Devourer of Worlds continues fighting as it damages ships. Everyone is silent the moment Galactus eats the energy out of one of their spaceships, and the line with that particular ship goes static. Stephen feels numb; if he’d been on that ship, he could’ve teleported them out at the last moment.

But then he would’ve drawn too much attention to everyone, and Tony wouldn’t have been able to be so wonderfully amazing at luring Galactus in every time. Tony doesn’t talk much over the comm., but Stephen can see flashes from the suit. Vision gives an update every time he’s talking, and Stephen suspects it’s mainly for his sake. The other ships keep away from Tony, and at least he doesn’t have to be concerned about friendly fire – the other sorcerers are keeping the ships updated about his existence well enough.

It’s a difficult battle, and it’s even more difficult to watch. Ships are crashing and burning, and when the Avengers’ ship goes down, Stephen feels his heart sink, even as he hears the commando for another rocket going. The rockets aren’t doing enough damage fast enough, even if Tony found a weak spot. 

‘’ _We’re going to lose all power soon. We need to end this, now._ ’’ It’s Natasha who is speaking, now. The Avengers won’t last long in space – not without crashing to the ground. They need to return to Earth, and they need to do it soon. Before their ship falls apart.

Stephen feels a stab of worry for Peter Parker, the boy he’s spent a few minutes talking to. A boy with a massive intellect and an even bigger heart. The child that he knows adores Tony, and a child that Tony loves. The boy that Tony didn’t want to come, and who wanted to help so badly that he came anyway.

‘’They can’t stay out there,’’ Stephen says. Wong still stands beside him, together with a larger group of people he doesn’t know. ‘’They will die if they don’t come back.’’

‘’They’re the Avengers,’’ Wong says quietly. ‘’If that’s what it takes, they will.’’

‘’That’s not going to help anyone!’’ he snaps. ‘’They can’t go into space to fight him – they’re on a ship, firing at him! What good is it to have them there?’’

Everyone’s whispering among themselves, worrying despite the rocket that is already on its way. It’s not going to be enough; if they send twenty more rockets, it’s not going to be enough. This is it – they can’t stop Galactus, and he’s going to eat all the energy they have. Earth will die in its aftermath, and all its people will be nothing more than lifeless shells. Stephen feels the cold settle in his chest, and stares at the live-feed, praying there is something they can do. Anything.

And his prayer is answered. ‘’ _We’re returning,_ ’’ Vision states suddenly, but he doesn’t sound relieved. ‘’ _Tony has some sort of plan. I don’t know if it’s anything I want to hear_.’’

‘’Tony?’’ Stephen murmurs, straightening. ‘’What’s he doing?’’

Just as he asks the question, his personal comm. buzzes. ‘’Tony?’’ he asks, trying to mask his worry. He’s not sure he succeeds, though.

The device stutters, but then Tony’s voice comes through, clear as day. The entire room stills, and Stephen can’t move.

‘’ _I’m going to do something stupid,_ ’’ Tony says, and Stephen doesn’t want to hear this. His heart turns to ice. ‘’ _I love you, Stephen, alright? Just – there’s no other way. I love you so much, and I’m so sorry. You deserve more than me. And I know I promised to come home, but – but I think I lied._ ’’

Stephen can feel his hands start trembling, even as he tries not to let the communicator drop. He can’t believe this is happening – he can’t believe Tony would do this.

‘’Tony. Tony, no, wait. There’s another rocket coming in a minute,’’ he pleads, watching. The rocket should be there anytime soon – and he knows what he thought before, but Tony can’t do this. This isn’t what was supposed to happen. Tony promised to come back, and Stephen always worried about his involvement, but this is something he’d never believed would actually come to pass. ‘’Just keep him busy, whatever you have planned, it’s not necessary. Please, Tony. I love you.’’

He can see Wong staring at him, his entire face tight in concern. Stephen turns away, even as he hears Tony’s voice come again. ‘’ _I’m sorry. Stephen, can you do me one favour? I want you to do one thing, just for me._ ’’

‘’Tony –‘’ he tries, but the man he loves interferes before he can try again.

‘’ _Give me this one last thing. Stephen, release yourself from the spell that makes you remember me, alright? You have a job to do, and there’s going to be so few people to remember me. I don’t want you to go through this alone. Please – release the spell._ ’’

Stephen feels all colour drain from his cheek. He remembers the time Tony joked about Stephen doing that – he’d never thought he’d say it again. Not like this – never like this. It’s obviously something Tony remembered, though. Something that he wants for Stephen. For Stephen not to mourn.

For Stephen not to remember.

‘’I can’t,’’ he answers, trying to breathe calmly. 

‘’ _You’re going to have to forget me. Do it for me._ ’’

It’s a dying wish, and Stephen sags to the ground, trying to hold in his tears. He has never before felt so useless – he is losing everything he has ever dreamt of. Maybe Wong was right, at the start – maybe Stephen has always set himself up for this kind of unbelievable pain. Maybe it would’ve been better, if he’d never kissed Tony.

He can’t believe that. And yet, he feels as if the energy has been stolen from him anyway, as if he’s been doomed to lose one way or another.

He just wants to say something, but then the connection falls away. ‘’Tony?’’ he asks, but there is no response. ‘’Tony? Please, are you there? Tony!’’

The floor is cold, and Stephen can feel himself trembling. Wong crouches besides him, his eyes wet as well. ‘’He’s doing this for you,’’ he says quietly, and helps him up. Stephen leans against his friend, ignoring the people surrounding him. They’re still watching the live-feeds, and Stephen can’t help but follow it, too.

Despite being zoomed in, it’s still difficult to see what’s happening. He doesn’t want to see, but he can’t quite watch away. He can only see the rocket hit Galactus, and then sees a streak of hot-rot red moving. Within a second, a second explosion follows, and the creature moves in agony.

The blue energy disperses, floating away in illumined strands in all directions. 

For a minute, Stephen can’t quite believe it as the cheering starts. People hug each other, crying in relief as it becomes clear that somehow, Galactus has been defeated. Somehow, Tony has done something to him that has delivered the final blow.

And now, Tony’s gone.

‘’Where’s Tony?’’ he asks, anyway, because apparently, he doesn’t know any better. If there’s any hope, anything at all, he wants to have it. In desperation, he takes a step forward. ‘’Is there anyone left there?’’

‘’Stephen,’’ Wong says, taking him by the sleeve and dragging him away into a quiet hallway. At least they don’t have to hear the celebrations from here. ‘’Didn’t you see that explosion? Tony’s gone, Stephen.’’

‘’No,’’ he chokes. ‘’He was wearing his suit! Tony’s not – he can’t be.’’

‘’You’ll be alright, Stephen,’’ Wong says, and hugs him. Stephen goes limp in his friend’s arms, though his mind is going on full speed. ‘’Hey, it’s going to be alright.’’

Stephen can feel Wong trembling, too, though, but he doesn’t know what to do but grasp at his friend as he lets reality sink in. Galactus has been destroyed; never again will he devour a planet. Earth will continue as it always has, without even much of a shock. After all, most people never knew a danger was coming at all. They’ve won.

Yet, it feels so much like losing. Stephen can’t control the tears that leak from his eyes, and doesn’t even try to anyway. Reality is sinking in only now, as the last shreds of his hope are torn away from him. Probably, they should return to the Sanctum and let everyone know what’s happened. Let them know that the danger has passed, and that they’ve won.

Stephen takes a shuddering breath, and closes his eyes. Wong pats his back, and the Cloak tries to wipe his face. Stephen lets go, and pushes away the Cloak. He doesn’t want the pitying glances and the soft murmurs. He wants Tony, and he’ll never see the man again. He’ll never see that soft smirk, and he’ll never be able to run his hands through the thick hair again. He’s never going to kiss and taste the lingering sweetness of donut on Tony’s lips, and he’s never going to do anything that he so dearly wanted to do.

He’s lost everything, and he can’t find it in his heart to care about anything else. Not the kind whispers and not the sympathetic friends. 

‘’I can’t do this,’’ he says, and he wonders how he doesn’t sound completely heart-broken. He wonders why he even is here, after all. He should’ve gone on one of those ships and stopped Tony. He should’ve been there.

Wong frowns. ‘’Stephen –‘’ he starts, but he turns away. 

The Cloak flies after him, but Stephen turns to it in frustration. ‘’I never asked for you,’’ he snaps at it, and it recoils as if struck. ‘’I never asked for any of this! The only thing I ever asked for, _ever_ , isn’t here anymore! And I’m never going to get it back. He’s never coming back, Wong. No one but the Sanctum is even going to know what he’s done for everyone, and I’m – I can’t do this. I can’t do this, without him. Is that stupid? I’ve been fine for years, and in he comes, and he turns everything upside down. And I was just getting used to the world upside down, and here he goes and does it again. And I don’t want to get used to it, okay? He’s dead. And I’m –‘’

He shakes his head. There’s a hurricane going on inside his mind, and he can’t control it. It’s all a turmoil of contradicting feelings and thoughts, and he can’t make sense of anything. Wong makes a move towards him, but Stephen throws a quick spell at him without thinking about it. It sizzles and dies on the floor, but Wong looks like Stephen has murdered his cat.

He shouldn’t take this out on Wong. He lost a friend, too. Unfortunately, it’s hard for Stephen to think about anything but his own heartbreak.

‘’Stephen –‘’ Wong starts, but Stephen creates a portal. He can’t even tell where he’s thinking; he just moves and runs, runs, runs.

~*~

It shouldn’t be a surprise that he ends up in the hospital, maybe. The Metro-General hospital is full of people as it always is, but no one has time to go after Stephen. He knows these hallways like the back of his hand, as he has for years. No amount of time can make him forget the building that was once like a second home to him.

The doctors and nurses offer him a funny look, but the things about doctors and nurses is that they’re always too busy with other patients to go after odd-looking men running in the hallways. Stephen just runs until he can’t breathe anymore, and he finds himself a broom closet to storm into. He locks the door behind him and puts a quick but efficient spell on it to make sure no one will interrupt him against his will.

That’s how he comes to be sitting in a dark corner, trying to come to terms with Tony’s loss and miserably failing. The grief sits heavy in his heart, all the things he’s lost coming to mind. All he can thinks about is the first and the last time he kissed Tony, and how much more he wanted to do. 

He wouldn’t have changed any of it, he thinks. Stephen loves Tony more than anyone, and his death – it’s going to change him forever. And he thinks about Tony’s last words.

_Give me this one last thing. Stephen, release yourself from the spell that makes you remember me, alright? You’re going to have to forget me. Do it for me._

Stephen trembles, and feels the wetness roll down his cheeks. He has loved and he has lost, and grief is the price. There’s still Mordo to think of, however, and he is still Sorcerer Supreme. He has duties, and he can’t neglect them. Especially not now, in the aftermath of a terrible attack.

But he can’t follow Tony’s last demand, can he? It’s not that simple.

He doesn’t know how long he sits there. His head aches and he is unbelievably cold, but he doesn’t rise. He’s not physically capable of doing anything but sitting there right now, mourning Tony. A loud knock on the door starts him.

‘’Stephen!’’ Wong yells at him. ‘’Stephen, I know you’re there! Open up!’’

Other cries follow, but Stephen doesn’t listen to what they say, despite the growing urgency. He thinks he can hear Master Brown and Master Chen, desperately shouting at him. He faintly hears Minoru, too. None of that matters. He has a decision to make, one that they won’t allow him to make.

He loves Tony beyond anything, but Tony is dead now. And if there’s anything that Stephen has learnt in his short years as Sorcerer Supreme, it’s that his duty is to the living. Tony knew that, too; Tony has given Stephen a way to get out of his sorrow, by giving him the option not to have to mourn at all. After all, you can’t miss a man you don’t remember.

One last gift from a man thoughtful beyond his own desire.

Stephen chokes at the very thought. He can’t live like this. His grief is going to tear him up inside. All he can see is Tony’s dark eyes and his bright smile. Stephen is a man in love and a man in sorrow, and it’s not a good combination.

He has never been strong enough for this. He never asked to go through this, and he has, and here he is, on the other side. Scarred and broken, and this time, it is something far worse than just his hands that has taken the brunt.

Stephen ignores the pleas from his yelling Masters as he rises his hands, steadily glowing. He finds the spell in his own mind, and he remembers when he’d applied it to himself. It feels like a life-time ago, when he’d made himself resistant against Tony’s curse. When he’d promised Tony that he would get back his life, and that Stephen would lift his curse. He’d lied.

But what does it matter? Tony promised he’d come home and that he’d be safe, and he’d lied, too. They can call it a draw – the most painful draw in history.

With a quiet whisper, he erases the spell from his own mind, as he chooses to forget.


	38. Chapter 38

When Tony wakes, he feels pretty horrible.

His throat is dry and it aches as he tries to swallow. His head isn’t feeling great, either, and he feels like he’s just come down with the worst flu in history. When he opens his eyes, the lights are too bright and only make things worse. Involuntarily, he closes his eyes again, but then decides he has questions that can only be answered if he’s awake.

Only through strength of will he manages to sit up and open his eyes again. Rocket sits in front of him and he starts heavily. Rocket laughs at him.

‘’Good to see you’re done with your beauty nap, Stark,’’ Rocket sniggers, and jumps off him. ‘’I have to say, you’re not becoming any prettier.’’

‘’What does a raccoon know about that?’’ Tony retorts, but it’s more automatism than that there’s any actual venom behind it. He turns his head around, and only starts recognizing his surroundings just then. ‘’Why am I on your ship?’’

Gamora enters, frowning at him. ‘’We saved you,’’ she says simply.

‘’Saved me?’’ he blinks, and remembers the fight. He remembers almost being eaten by Galactus, and diving into him to end it. He doesn’t remember anything after that, though, so he scowls at his faulty memory. ‘’What happened? Is everyone else okay?’’

‘’You managed to destroy Galactus,’’ she says, ‘’but all the other ships were already returning to Earth. We thought you were dead – you almost were, in fact. We couldn’t leave, anyway, so we tried to find you. Drax got you back to our ship, and Mantis kept you alive. Galactus managed to drain your arc reactor – it wasn’t on, anymore, so we switched it out for the one you installed into our ship.’’

Tony frowns, and looks at his chest. It’s indeed a different model of arc reactor. Not that it matters – all of them do the same thing, but he’s lucky that it fit. Things might have been different, had the Guardians not thought of doing that. He may not have been breathing anymore.

‘’Thanks,’’ he says sincerely, and tries not to think about the what-ifs. ‘’So, what now?’’

Rocket shuffles on his feet. ‘’Well – we kind of wanted to find the nearest hospital that’s around, and that isn’t on Earth. Quill is still out, and since he’s only half-human – well, we’re not sure that your doctors could handle it.’’

‘’Wait, he’s still unconscious?’’ Tony asks, worry filling him.

‘’We can bring you to Earth after, of course,’’ Gamora says, mentioning something that Tony hasn’t even thought about yet. ‘’The doctor can check you out, too – at least he’ll remember you, unlike the humans, right? We’re just really worried about Peter.’’

Tony feels something sink in his chest. He remembers clearly what he’d told Stephen. He’d not expected to live through his encounter with Galactus, actually. If Stephen has listened to him…

Well. If Stephen has listened to him, there’s really no hurry for Tony to get back to Earth at all. His chest hurts at the thought of Stephen having forgotten all about him; he’ll be back off right where he started, and even worse. Once again, no one will remember him. 

‘’Does your communication device still work?’’ Tony asks.

Rocket shrugs. ‘’We don’t have the energy for it, without the arc reactor. We only have the power to run the things that are absolutely necessary, and we don’t know how long we might be stranded here. The engine is difficult to fix.’’

‘’Rocket’s hands aren’t big enough,’’ Gamora supplies, ignoring Rocket’s indignant cry.

‘’I can help with that,’’ Tony offers, despite the fact that his head’s still hurting. It’ll be good for him to be able to do something. It’ll help him get his mind off Stephen. He’d rather have a hurting head than a hurting heart. And since he can’t get in contact with Earth, he would rather stick with the people that do remember him, and help them first.

They saved his life, after all. He owes them this, and he can figure out what to do next after.

~*~

It takes some time to fix the engine. Without Tony’s original arc reactor, his suit doesn’t work anymore. The new arc reactor and his suit aren’t compatible, but the Guardians have enough space-suits for him to join Rocket outside.

Rocket points out what is wrong to him and they start fixing it together, Tony reaching for the pieces Rocket can’t get to. It’s not an easy repair, and it’s slow-going. They don’t exactly have many parts to replace the broken ones, so it’s a patch-job at best. There’s nothing else for it; the ship will be repaired fully when they get to a hospital for Peter Quill.

It takes them a few hours and a lot of curses, but then the engine is fixed. The radio silence still lasts, and Tony can see the Guardians getting anxious over the energy they still have left. It will barely be enough to get them to another planet, and they’ll need to use as little as possible. So back inside, the heating goes down to the bare minimum, and Tony shivers and mourns.

‘’Let’s see if that worked,’’ Rocket says, starting up the ship. With a satisfying roar, the ship comes back to life. The raccoon smiles.

‘’Where’s the closest planet we can get to?’’ Tony asks.

‘’We’re going to have to make a jump,’’ Gamora answers. ‘’It’s the only way we’re going to reach a planet in time. I think we’re going to have to go to Grundar.’’

Tony has no idea what kind of planet that is, but the other Guardians nod. Groot doesn’t look up from his videogame, thoroughly unimpressed with everything that’s happened, but Drax and Mantis seem to be on board. Rocket takes the wheel, and starts pressing buttons too fast for Tony to make sense of.

‘’Let’s get to Grundar,’’ the raccoon says. ‘’Hold on tightly. This might be a bumpy ride.’’ 

Without a warning, the ship starts and disappears into streaks of light.

~*~

Despite not being the most observant man in general, Tony likes to think he’s more perceptive than people generally care to give him credit for. He doesn’t miss Gamora’s worried glances at Peter Quill’s unconscious form, more than any of the other Guardians. They all care for the man, obviously, but Gamora, he thinks, is worrying more than is healthy for her.

It’s not as if he can blame her, though, as he thinks about his own gnawing concern for Stephen.

‘’He’s going to be alright, you know,’’ Tony tells her quietly, as they sit together. She looks back to Quill once again, biting her lower lip. ‘’He’s going to be fine, and he’s going to wake up.’’

‘’He’s never been this injured,’’ she says. 

‘’It’s a head wound, he needs time to recover,’’ Tony says sensibly. He’s been concussed often enough to know what a hassle head wounds are, compared to other injuries.

She sighs. ‘’I know. I’m just worried about him. Peter, he’s the only one who really understands me. I don’t know what I’d do without him. He’s family, now – all the Guardians are.’’

‘’I know,’’ Tony says. She looks at him, and smiles sadly. They share an understanding, and a worry for the men they love. Neither of them knows what the future will bring; if Peter will wake up and return to his full health, or if Stephen still even remembers Tony. 

Tony doesn’t know if he can face Stephen, if the man doesn’t remember him. He doesn’t even know if Stephen will still be able to perform the counter-spell; he doesn’t know if anyone’s written it down or will show him. Will Stephen even want to?

And what does it say if Stephen won’t? If they decide that it’s easier to not remember him, in the long run? That Tony’s only brought him pain and misery, and that there’s other things to worry about? Stephen can’t be persuaded by Tony if he doesn’t remember him. And what if Mordo comes in between?

It’s not as if he can go to Earth, anyway. They need to fix Quill, first.

Drax comes sit next to them. Tony doesn’t know him as well, but he doesn’t think the alien is altogether bright. Drax doesn’t seem so peculiar at that moment, though, and he can see why the Guardians like him. He is solemn and sincere, sitting there, and Tony misses the usual enthusiasm that radiates from him.

‘’I lost my wife and daughter, a few years ago,’’ he starts, and Tony frowns. ‘’I know the pain that comes with losing someone you care about. I know about the fire it starts in your soul, unyielding and unrelenting. I know about the quiet moments when you think there’s no reason to go on. But that’s not going to happen to the both of you. I know that.’’

He sounds almost proud, at that last sentence. As if he truly does know something that they don’t – as if he has a hope that surpasses theirs, even as they cling to what is left. Tony shifts in his seat, trying to tilt his lips into a smile, but he’s certain it’s more of a grimace. Gamora is just looking down, not ready to meet anyone’s eyes.

‘’Oh, come here!’’ Mantis cries out, and embraces them all at once. Her antenna glows, and Tony feels a warmth and calmness pass through him, only slight traces of his despairing melancholy left. He stills in Mantis’ arms, and feels Gamora beside him doing the same.

She rises, as soon as Mantis pulls away. ‘’Thank you,’’ she says sincerely. 

‘’The Guardians are a family,’’ Mantis says resolutely, but she looks so innocent and small, as if she’s never recognized the fact that she was part of a tightly-knot group now. And now that she’s the one to comfort them all, she has to make them recognize that fact. ‘’Families help each other. I don’t want you to be sad.’’

‘’You’re right,’’ Gamora says, her lips tilting. ‘’We’re a family, and families look after each other. We’re going to help Peter get better, and then we’re going to bring Tony home.’’

‘’And afterwards, we’re going to look for trouble again!’’ Rocket says.

‘’I am Groot!’’ Groot proudly states.

‘’That’s right,’’ Gamora says, and now she’s grinning. ‘’You are Groot.’’

~*~

Despite the jump, it still takes them a while to get to Grundar. Tony just sits by the window and watches the darkness, infinitely glad not to be outside anymore. He is only starting to realize how lucky he is to have survived Galactus just now, and how close he’d been to having lost everything. He’s only still alive because the Guardians found him and were smart enough to switch out his dead arc reactor for a working one.

It’s also an eye-opener for how wide, exactly, the galaxy is. Tony knows the theories; it’s not as if he expected to be on another planet within minutes, but the fact that the closest planet is still so far away grants him a little perspective. 

Most of them are silent, during the flight. Quill’s slow and steady breathing makes them all acutely aware that he needs medical attention, and as fast as they can get him to it. Too many precious hours have been lost already. Despite the fact that he doesn’t seem too badly off, anything could be wrong with him. Tony isn’t a doctor; maybe if they’d been able to get in contact with Stephen, he could’ve asked him for his help on this matter.

Who is he kidding? If he’d managed to talk to Stephen, Peter Quill wouldn’t be the first thing he’d talk about, no matter how concerned he might be for the Guardian. Even now, he can’t help wondering at what choice the sorcerer has made. If he’s chosen to forget all about Tony, and if his memories can be regained – or if he’s decided to disregard Tony’s words. Even if he hasn’t, what does that mean? Stephen won’t know where Tony is, or if he has even survived. 

It doesn’t matter what Stephen has done; neither of them are bound to be happy at this exact moment. Tony needs to find his way back to Earth to see if Stephen remembers him, or if he still wants to help. If, maybe, the Sanctum will decide it’s better to have a Sorcerer Supreme that’s not in love with a fallible man, unlearned in the Mystic Arts. 

He has to know what Stephen’s decision will be, and only then he can start thinking of anything else.

~*~

They land on Grundar less smoothly than Tony might have expected, which is why he starts awake the moment they reach the ground. 

Rocket kills the engines, and looks rather relieved that they’ve made it at all. Tony can guess why; it’d been the question if they even had enough energy to get to Grundar in the first place. It would’ve been difficult to get help, drifting in space without working communication.

‘’Come,’’ Mantis tells him, kindly looking as Tony shakes away his drowsiness. The other Guardians are already busy helping out Peter, but Mantis waits for Tony to get ready before following them out. Tony smiles at her gratefully. She truly is the heart of the Guardians – soft and kind, and a peacemaker at heart. He doesn’t know how she came to join a group of fighters, but she has her place with them. He knows how powerful she can be, even if she prefers to keep quiet most of the time.

‘’Have you ever been to Grundar before?’’ he asks her, as they land. Breathing on Grundar is a bit more difficult than it is on Earth, and moving is almost a challenge with the weight of his own body. None of the other Guardians seem to have much trouble moving around, but Tony has to steady himself unexpectedly, holding Mantis’ shoulder.

She glances at him, eyes understanding. ‘’No,’’ she says. ‘’I’ve spent most of my life on Ego’s planet. He took me when I was a little girl.’’

There seems to be more to that story, but Tony senses that maybe now isn’t the time to ask. He’s too busy looking around, anyway, soaking in the wonder that is Grundar. When he’d heard the name, he’d pictured some kind of marsh-like planet, but it’s definitely not. High buildings rise up, aerated and iridescent. The colours seem to glow and are beyond anything Tony’s ever seen as they shimmer and flow into another colour altogether. Red trees, larger than the buildings, fill up the horizon, as far as Tony can see. It’s almost autumn and summer mixed together, and nothing is grey.

‘’Beautiful, isn’t it?’’ Mantis says. The other Guardians are before them, urgently talking to one of the habitants of Grundar, gesturing with their hands. They are human-like creatures, but their eyes are rounder and their irises bigger, with a faintly pink hue to them. Their skins are the colour of a blackboard, a chalky black that contrasts with their bright clothes. They are ethereal in their own right, and Tony can’t help but stare.

‘’I’ve never been to another planet before,’’ Tony mutters. ‘’This is – I didn’t even think about what to expect.’’

‘’Let’s go, she’s going to bring us to a med bay,’’ Gamora says as she turns around. Peter Quill is being put onto a camel-like creature; big enough to easily carry three humans and three-eyed. The six legs are most conspicuous, however. The creature’s fur glimmers in a colour that can’t be described, and Tony frowns.

‘’Are we going to ride on a camel?’’ he asks incredulously.

Drax turns to him. ‘’These are no camels!’’ he exclaims loudly, but then he turns towards Rocket, trying for a whisper next. ‘’What are camels?’’

‘’Heck if I know,’’ Rocket says, but he’s climbing on top of one. Gamora swings on one of the camel-like things, sitting behind Peter. One of the Grunds sits in front of the camel.

Tony reluctantly takes his place on the third creature, holding onto the soft fur. His hands tingle, but he doesn’t want to let go and plummet to his death. He’s just avoided dying only a day before, and he’d rather keep living for just a little longer. Mantis takes a seat behind him, getting on the camel more easily than he did, but he’s glad she’s there, at least. There’s a Grund in front of him as well, clearly looking at them to see if they’re ready.

‘’Hi,’’ Tony says. The Grund blinks at him, nonplussed. His mouth opens, but no discernable sound comes out. Tony frowns, but has to hold on tightly as suddenly the camel starts running.

It’s definitely not camel-like in its movements. It barely takes any time to start up calmly, and they are at the end of the road within mere seconds. Tony doesn’t even have time to do anything but tighten his hold as the camel suddenly runs on air. It’s not flying, exactly, but there’s definitely no road beneath them. Tony breathes out loudly in surprise, feeling his heartbeat speed up in anxiety.

Mantis is laughing behind him, and it helps him calm down a bit. ‘’They fly?’’ he asks, trying not to sound as if he’s ready to pee his pants. Dangers on Earth, he can handle; he hadn’t imagined seeing an alien culture, so vastly contradicting his own experiences. He wishes Stephen were here to see this; maybe he’d be just as surprised, and he’d sit behind Tony, holding him tightly.

‘’Not fly,’’ Mantis says, as if it’s clear as day. ‘’They’re running! Can’t you see the road?’’

‘’I don’t see anything,’’ Tony says, peering at it. He barely has time to reflect on what he’s hearing when they go straight for the trees. Tony has to duck to avoid being hit by a branch, and keeps his face low. The Grund seems unperturbed, and sits still as a statue as they follow the other creatures.

They run through the shimmering branches, steadily thickening as they get closer to the tree’s trunk. Tony fears a collision. As much as he wants to keep his eyes closed, he’s far too intrigued by everything he’s seeing. There are people who would kill to gain insight in an alien culture, and Tony’s curiosity has always been a dominant part of his personality.

The tree’s trunk are hollow. They don’t completely go straight down, but are crooked, and are evidently used as pathways. Tony watches at the strange symbols carved into them, but it’s not like any writing system he’s ever seen. He doesn’t have any time to study them, anyway. The camel-like creatures steadily gallop, and they stride without any evident difficulty. Tony doesn’t know if it’s because they have two extra legs, but it’s nothing like sitting on a horse. It’s not any more uncomfortable than sitting in a car, and he understands why patients can be moved on beings like this. It’s as safe as can be, probably, and at that realization, he relaxes even more.

They reach the med-bay in only a few minutes. The camels stride right into a building, seemingly completely made of wood. It can’t be normal the same as on Earth, Tony thinks. It looks too different from what he knows.

There’s a strange combination of wood and technology. Everything around them is still brightly coloured, the furniture as well as the people, and there’s not a single sign of white coats anywhere. Tony stays put on his camel as they ride the hallways, encountering other creatures with patients on them sometimes. 

It takes them a few more minutes to reach their destination. The Grunds quickly take Quill off the camel, laying him on a bed. Some things are the same everywhere. Gamora stays by his side, but Tony takes some distance. It’s not as if he’s a Guardian; they deserve a bit of privacy.

It seems the other Guardians aren’t as eager to stay with Quill either, though. Only Gamora stays behind, Rocket lagging behind only to talk to the Grunds.

‘’What’s the deal with this place?’’ Tony asks, turning to Drax. The guy may not be a bright bulb, but he knows more about the galaxy than Tony does.

Drax shrugs. ‘’Grundar is good with medicine,’’ he simply says. ‘’They’re weird. Tiny bright people.’’

It’s not much help, so he turns to Mantis instead. She just shrugs. ‘’I’ve heard that they think bright colours lead to a good life,’’ she says. ‘’They wrap their criminals in black, and their dead in white. They do not communicate with words, but with colours and gestures. Their voices are too high-pitched for many races to perceive.’’

‘’You can hear them?’’ Tony asks.

She nods slightly. ‘’Their voices are very pretty,’’ she says dreamily. ‘’I like the colours, too. I don’t know a lot about them, but Gamora has told me about them before. She says that the Grunds are very sociable people who know a lot about technology and medicine, in their own way. They don’t like to listen to Xandar and the Nova Corps, but they know other things. Things we can’t explain, but they can.’’

Tony frowns, but nods at her words. It’s clear that Gamora thinks a great deal of the Grunds, even if they seem odd. He can only assume that Quill will be helped, here. There’s no reason to think otherwise, anyway.

They settle in for a wait. Tony doesn’t mind spending his time with the Guardians, and doesn’t feel a pressure to explore. He’s tired, and he wants to go home. He’ll only get to go home if Quill wakes up, and otherwise –

Well. At least there’s people here who remember him. The Grunds pose whole another problem, though, with the language barrier. 

It’s been hours, though it’s hard to judge. The Grunds’ day is longer than an Earth’s day, and Tony feels like he slips in and out of sleep as he sits there, waiting. Still, they have definitely missed a few meals when Gamora comes out, a relieved smile playing on her lips.

‘’Peter’s awake,’’ she says.


	39. Chapter 39

Stephen sits there, numb, for a few minutes. It didn’t work. 

He tried to erase Tony from his mind, and it didn’t work. Maybe he’s the one who’s cursed. He doesn’t feel any anger, anymore; just cold detachment and loss. His Masters are still banging at the door, and Stephen releases the protective spell on the handle.

That _does_ work. Wong crashes inside, the door smacking against a closet. A broom falls to the floor and with it, some other material, but no one cares about that. He rushes forward, falling to his knees as he grabs Stephen by his shoulders. The Cloak flies in after him, settling on Stephen’s shoulders before he can even try to protest. If he even has the energy to, that is.

‘’I tried to erase it,’’ Stephen says miserably, before Wong can even open his mouth. ‘’It didn’t work. I can’t forget him. Why can’t I forget Tony?’’

‘’Master Strange,’’ Minoru says, and though she looks composed, regret is evident in her eyes. ‘’I think there’s a perfectly sound explanation for that.’’

Normally, Stephen would mind his Masters seeing him like this. He’s worked too hard to become Sorcerer Supreme to be seen as an emotional wreck – he’s a rational being, preferring to share his emotions with only those closest to him and radiating professionalism to everyone else. There’s not a single Master in his Sanctum, however, that doesn’t know how important Tony was to him.

All of them look at him with sorrowful pity – Master Brown, Master Chen and Master Moretti all stand there, but there’s one more person. Christine Palmer stands there, quietly looking at him. She doesn’t seem to comprehend the situation, but her gaze is soft and calming. ‘’Stephen? These people were looking for you, and I saw you running. Are you okay?’’ 

Wong helps Stephen up. His legs protest at the motion, but then he’s standing, finding his equilibrium as he looks down at her. ‘’I’m sorry,’’ he says, though he’s not quite sure what he’s apologizing for. All fight has left him – he can only just find it in himself to remain standing.

‘’Don’t worry,’’ she answers. ‘’What’s going on?’’

‘’Dr Palmer,’’ Minoru says calmly. ‘’Could you tell us, perhaps, who Tony Stark is?’’

‘’Tony Stark?’’ she asks, and she looks at the Master of the Hong Kong Sanctum with bewilderment in her eyes. 

‘’What are you doing?’’ Stephen hisses.

‘’Trust me,’’ Minoru answers, and she’s never given him a reason not to. ‘’Just answer the question, Dr Palmer. Who’s Tony Stark?’’

‘’He’s Iron Man,’’ Christine says, and Stephen stiffens. ‘’He invents stuff, right? He was the CEO of Stark Industries, and he’s an Avenger. Why do you – oh my god. He was here, that time. He was here when you got stabbed. And I didn’t know him at all!’’

‘’The three ways to lift a curse,’’ Stephen says, realization dawning on him. ‘’Finding a spell that can dissolve a curse, finding the person who cast a curse, or finding something that can destroy the energy. And now –‘’

‘’Galactus destroyed the energy,’’ Minoru finishes for him, crossing her arms. ‘’He ate the energy of Tony’s curse, and thus lifted it.’’

Stephen can’t quite believe it. He lets out a shaky breath. At the moment they hadn’t even thought about doing anything about Tony’s curse, and it has been lifted. Tony’s cursed was lifted, and then he died.

Tony will never know that he was remembered, when he died. Tony left the world thinking no one would know, and passed away quietly and solemnly. He’d even asked Stephen to forget him, and like the idiot he is, Stephen had tried.

He’s such a fool. What if that had worked? What if he wouldn’t have remembered who Tony was? It’s like a chill in his bones, and he’s glad it never worked. Tony may be dead, but he deserves to be remembered. 

‘’People are going to remember him,’’ Stephen promises. ‘’He saved Earth one last time. He deserves to be remembered.’’

Wong nods. ‘’He does,’’ he mutters, and pats Stephen on the shoulder. ‘’We will make sure of it.’’

Stephen straightens. The grief still weighs heavily on him, but he can think a bit more clearly now. ‘’Return to the Sanctum and make sure everyone knows what occurred,’’ he says to his Masters. ‘’I’m going to the Compound and see the other ships return. Perhaps they can shed more light on what, exactly, happened, and why.’’

Besides, Stephen doesn’t think he can return to the Sanctum yet. There will be traces of Tony everywhere, and he will be confronted with too many memories.

Yes, forgetting would be easier. But Stephen has never taken the easy way out. He doesn’t want to be done with his work right now; he wants to keep going, despite his exhaustion. If he falls now, he won’t stop falling.

‘’I will come with you,’’ Wong offers, as the Masters slowly disappear. Minoru stays as well, clearly showing her intention to go along. Christine crosses her arms.

‘’What’s going on?’’ she asks. ‘’Stephen?’’

She’s confused, and determined, and she has been his rock for so long. Still, he’s not sure he can summarize it. There’s a part of him that can’t quite believe it, won’t ever believe it. Tony’s gone, and not coming back. He gently shakes his head at her, and gives the only explanation that he can. 

‘’I lost again,’’ he says quietly, and creates a portal.

~*~

Stephen isn’t sure how long he was gone, but it has to be longer than he thinks. The ships are already in sight when he arrives at the Compound – Wright is there, waiting as well, and he turns to them once he catches sight of them.

‘’Masters,’’ he says hurriedly. ‘’Master Strange – I’m so sorry. Why are you even here?’’

‘’Where else should I be?’’ Stephen asks, and his voice is hoarse. 

Wright shuts up at that, and Wong squeezes his arm. It’s probably meant to be friendly, but it actually kind of hurts. There’s dozens of other people walking around, waiting for the ships to come down – for the heroes of today to be hailed at their victory. Stephen just feels hollow. 

They stand off to the side, silent even as others applaud when the ships finally touch the ground again. There’s clear damage done to some of them, and the Avengers’ ship is ready to fall apart. There’s a second of silence before all military men and women come out of their ships, silent but smiling. Stephen thinks of the one ship that didn’t make the trip home, and of the one man that sacrificed his own life.

The Avengers come out last, but they clearly look more defeated than most. Stephen watches them – they must remember Tony now, too. They must have remembered him the moment he sacrificed himself, the moment they’d turned away and were too late to save him. He recognizes Colonel Rhodes, but the man is more distressed than Stephen has ever seen him. He’s shaking his head, walking away from the others before even letting anyone greet him.

Stephen can’t find it in himself to blame the colonel. Rhodes has forgotten his friend, and the moment he remembered him again, Tony was gone. It’s too late for him to say goodbye, or to do anything he wanted to. It’s too late for all of them. 

He’s still trembling, he thinks, but Wong at his side keeps Stephen together for now. His breath catches as Peter Parker turns to him and spots him. The boy freezes, but starts determinedly making his way towards them. He’s not a boy, then, even as he comes close enough for Stephen to see his tear-stained cheeks. He’s a man, familiar with loss.

Familiar with this kind of deafening, numbing, all-consuming sorrow.

Peter reaches him before Stephen can even think of what to tell the boy. ‘’Tell me he didn’t,’’ Peter pleads. ‘’Mr Stark – he can’t. He didn’t?’’

Stephen stands before him, at a loss. ‘’I’m sorry,’’ he offers, his voice weak. ‘’You know he wouldn’t have done it if it could’ve been avoided. He loved you, Peter.’’

Peter lets out a sob. Stephen is entirely not expecting the way Peter throws himself forward into Stephen’s arms, forcing a hug out of him. It’s not unwanted, though – Stephen moves his arms into an embrace, feeling the boy cry against him. They both loved him, and they both lost him. And it’s not fair to Peter, to lose his mentor in such a cruel way. It’s not fair to Stephen, to lose the only one he’s ever loved like this. But they’re going to have to deal with a giant Tony-shaped hole in their existence. 

He remembers the first time he’d heard of Peter’s existence. Tony was desperate, then, for people to remember him. For Peter to stop a second and to know who he was again. And the boy does, now; and Tony’s not there to see it. 

Stephen thinks, for the first time ever, about how it would’ve looked like to see the look on Tony’s face, when Peter remembered. The bright smile he’d grown to love so much and the softness in his dark eyes; the crinkling at the corner of his eyes and the shifting of his weight, when he couldn’t keep still in excitement. He feels his own tears drop on Peter’s shoulder.

‘’I miss him,’’ Peter muffles against Stephen’s shoulder. The Cloak pats at Peter’s head, and it’s a testimony to how far gone the boy is that he doesn’t even appear to notice. Stephen tightens his hold. 

‘’I miss him, too,’’ he mutters. They stand together for a few more moments, two mourning people in a crowd of cheerful ones. Wong and Minoru move to gather in the crowd and ask for more information, but Stephen doesn’t pay attention to them. Tony cared about this teenager, and Stephen sees what Tony did, too; if comforting Peter is all he can do, then Stephen will do it to the best of his ability. 

It’s a long while before they both let go. Peter’s eyes are red-rimmed and puffy. ‘’I should find Aunt May,’’ the boy says sadly. ‘’She’ll want to see me. I told her I’m fine, but – she worries.’’

‘’I’m going to visit you,’’ Stephen tells the boy. It’s not on a whim as much as realizing that it’s something that he’ll have to do. They may have lost Tony, but Stephen isn’t going to let the boy go without at least something. He will never be able to replace Tony – he doesn’t even want to try – but if the boy wants a mentor, he can have one. Stephen will give Peter exactly what Tony wanted him to have.

Peter’s lips tilt at that. ‘’I’d like that,’’ he says. ‘’Take care, Master Strange.’’

Stephen inclines his head to the teenager before Peter leaves. He stands by himself for a few minutes before Minoru comes to find him once again. The people are leaving the hangar one by one, emptying slowly. Guys are coming in to take care of the ships, and Stephen watches them for a moment.

‘’It’s a heavy loss that we all bear in mind today,’’ Minoru says gravely. ‘’At least we have something to bear in mind, and that, we can be thankful for. His loved ones will remember him, Master Strange. Not least of all you.’’

‘’I know,’’ is all he says.

She is silent for a while. ‘’I know this is hardly your priority right now,’’ she starts again, ‘’but I think we should find Mordo.’’

Stephen mulls on the thought for a second. ‘’We should, yes.’’

‘’You don’t have to take the lead, of course,’’ Minoru assures him. ‘’We all know how much Tony meant –‘’

‘’I loved him more than anyone else,’’ Stephen interrupts her, and feels a stab of sorrow. He hasn’t told Tony that enough, and now he can’t. ‘’He would want me to find Mordo and bring him to justice. I promised him, one day, that we would find Mordo and his curse would be lifted. I may not have had anything to do with one, but I’m going to be damned if I’m not going to do the other. I may be too late, but I owe him that. I owe him a lot more, but at the very least, I can do that.’’

‘’You’re mourning,’’ Minoru says sharply.

‘’I’m Sorcerer Supreme, aren’t I?’’ Stephen replies bitterly. ‘’I have duties.’’

‘’Sorcerer Supreme, yes. A complete idiot, as well. You don’t need vengeance, and you won’t get it. We are not judge and executioner, Strange. We need to find Mordo, but we do not need you to take out your grief on him.’’

He is silent for a while. Minoru looks at him with dark eyes, a strand of hair falling in front of her face. She is determined and strong, and much more than he can claim to be right now. He lets out a deep breath.

‘’You’re right,’’ he acknowledges. 

Minoru relaxes, as if she was expecting more resistance. ‘’Alright,’’ she says. ‘’We will handle Mordo. The Avengers will continue looking for the missing Guardians, and anything else that comes up. Now, you should return to the Sanctum and rest. I mean it, Master Strange.’’

He nods, but she creates the portal for him. It’s a clear enough sign that she means for him to leave right now. Slightly begrudging the move, Stephen steps through. She is probably right – he is exhausted, and his head hurts from crying. It’s been a long and trying day, but all coming days will be. He steps into his own private room, and almost starts trembling again. He can’t be here.

The route to Tony’s room has become familiar enough, by now. The room Tony used to stay in isn’t empty, despite the owner’s absence. Dum-E stands in the corner, chirping happily at Stephen. His notebook still lies on the desk, abandoned, with a few books from the library.

Stephen sits down on the cold bed, pets the bot, and lets the tears fall.

~*~

Even when all the Guardians come in to see Quill, Tony stays to the back. He feels his position as an outsider more keenly than ever, as the teammates all gather around their captain. The room isn’t like the hospital rooms Tony is familiar with; everything is brightly coloured, and it’s starting to give him a head-ache. He never thought that he’d be too tired to look at colours, but there he is. 

Peter Quill seems to be tired and woozy, but the smile on his face when he sees the other Guardians is bright. ‘’Hey, guys,’’ he says in a teasing voice. ‘’You weren’t worrying about little old me, were you?’’

‘’I’d smack you for that if you didn’t have a head injury,’’ Rocket snaps at him, but he shuffles a bit closer to his friend. 

‘’We’re all glad you’re okay,’’ Mantis says. ‘’Do you need me to take away the pain?’’

Quill waves it away. ‘’They already have me on the best stuff, here, I barely feel anything anymore. Look, just touch my toes, it’s freaky – I’m not feeling any of that!’’

‘’Peter,’’ Gamora says strictly, but she sounds fond. Quill turns to her, but freezes at catching sight of Tony. In response, Tony tries to grin, but Quill just frowns at him. Seems like the sight of him is even odder than the camel-like creatures with six legs that are still running around. On the other hand, the guy is a space outlaw. Maybe Tony is the odd one out anyway.

‘’You’re that Stark dude,’’ he says. ‘’What are you doing here?’’

‘’He mightily defeated the Galactus!’’ Drax says proudly, patting Tony on his back so powerfully that he almost crashes forward into the bed. It doesn’t make it any less awkward to him. ‘’And then he fainted, so we brought him with us.’’

‘’Well, it was a bit more complicated than that,’’ Gamora says, but Tony can only stare at Quill.

‘’You remember me?’’ he asks. ‘’But – the curse. You shouldn’t be able to – you’re kidding me. You actually know who I am?’’

Quill frowns. ‘’Yeah, that curse thing. Damn it, I must’ve introduced myself a dozen times. Now I look like an idiot. None of the others did that!’’

Tony waves it away. ‘’I didn’t even notice that, everyone did that,’’ he says distractedly. ‘’If you remember me – the curse is gone? Can it be – but – it can’t be gone, right? Mordo wasn’t there. We’ve been looking for Mordo to lift it all this time, he’s not – he can’t, from far away, can he? And why would he? I was in _space_.’’

‘’Maybe he was in space, too!’’ Drax suggests.

‘’Maybe Peter’s injury is the cause,’’ Gamora says, glancing at the others. ‘’Maybe it messed up something internally, and it can’t affect him anymore.’’

‘’Besides, I’m only half-human,’’ Quill points out. ‘’I should only half-forget.’’

Tony doesn’t necessarily want to believe any of that, even as his heart starts pounding. He doesn’t think any of those options is the right answer, though he’s almost afraid to think of his curse being gone and later finding out not that it is not true. His mind starts racing, everything Stephen and Minoru ever told him about the curse playing out in his mind. With a start, he realizes what must’ve happened.

‘’Galactus destroyed it,’’ he whispers to himself. ‘’When I almost died – the curse went, first. It may very well be the reason I’m still alive – he couldn’t take all of my energy, because I emitted so much because of the curse. He had to eat all of that, first, and then I still had enough to finish him off from my suit’s power, because he’d taken all of the curse’s energy first. Damn it, I didn’t even think of that. Stephen – we’d dismissed that option almost immediately. They always said it was too dangerous to destroy the energy, but it’s done. That’s what happened. It has to be!’’

‘’So you’re saying that your curse has been lifted?’’ Gamora asks sceptically. ‘’It’s actually gone?’’

‘’It’s actually gone,’’ Tony repeats. He can’t quite believe it himself; for months, this was everything he longed for. Well, apart from that bit where he’d been crushing on Stephen, but still. None of his friends remembered him – they will, know. Right at this moment, Pepper will know who he is. Rhodey will remember, and Peter will know. Stephen can’t have lifted his own spell, because there’s no curse to need it anymore.

And they’re all going to think he’s dead, too. What else? He disappear with the Guardians after destroying Galactus – they’re going to believe that he died when doing that. He’d all but left a note, after all; and they’re actually going to remember what he said now. Stephen, but the Avengers as well. Even if they had a possibility to search for him, they’re going to notice that he’s missing. It’s not looking good for him.

God, what is Stephen even going to believe?

He needs to get back to Earth as soon as possible. As he looks up, to see the Guardians looking back, he knows that they’ve all come to the same realization. Well, Gamora and Rocket, at least. It’s a bit of a gamble to say what the others are thinking.

‘’I am Groot,’’ Groot says.

‘’The ship will be finished in a few hours,’’ Gamora tells him. ‘’The Grunds are taking care of it, and they’re generally very quick about this sort of thing. Peter can rest in that time, and then we’ll go back to drop you off.’’

Tony’s heart is beating wildly. They all remember him, and he’s stuck on an alien planet. He wants to run back immediately, but he’s going to have to wait. A few hours, and then all the way home. It’s going to take a full day, at least, and it feels like far too long.

There’s no choice, however. He’s standing in a brightly-lit hospital room, six-legged camels running all around, and all he wants to do is go home. Actually go home; talk to his friends, and have them remember him.

If a day more is what it takes, than that’s what he’s going to give. 

He’s going to go home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Tony said he's going to go home, but I'm actually meaning to go back into space again soon. With this fic? I mean, I'm not spoiling anything, but that's not what I was talking about. I'm going to do some shameless self-promoting and tell all of you about the existence of my new fic, [The Space Around The Stars](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19817575/chapters/46922680). I've been working on it for some time now, and finally caved and posted it :) It's going to be full of angst, mutual pining, slow burn, and space shenanigans. I can't wait.


	40. Chapter 40

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: dead bodies

Every newspaper’s headline is about Tony. 

Stephen doesn’t even want to read them, but it’s hard to avoid hearing about Tony anywhere. The entire world is shocked by the revelation that they have all forgotten about a man so well-known to many; an Avenger, a scientist, a hero. No explanation has been brought out so far, but the world knows that something has happened to Tony.

They know he’s dead, at least, and everyone has questions. Questions that Stephen isn’t willing to answer.

He knows that Wong has taken up his fair share of Stephen’s tasks, the past two days. Stephen refuses to leave everything up to him and wallow, but it’s still hard to pick up the pieces of his own broken heart. The Sanctum is empty and silent without Tony, but if he focuses hard enough on something else, he can almost ignore it.

Wong has informed the Avengers, in very little detail, of how Tony came to the Sanctum for help and how he’s stayed there. They’re mourning, too, so Wong had left out many of the particulars. Maybe, when they’re all feeling a bit better, Stephen can visit them and talk about Tony. The hurt is too fresh now. 

He doesn’t concern himself with the aftermath of the fight; Wright is busy with handling it, and Minoru involves herself both with that and the search for Mordo. Stephen is well aware that many of his own Masters are looking for him, too. He wonders if they will ever find him; the past months have taught him very well that Mordo isn’t easily found if he doesn't want to be. He still has the sensors all over New York, where Tony once placed them.

The Sanctum is not the place where he spends most of his time. Despite not actively talking to the Avengers, he has spent a great amount of time with the other cursed persons. Their curses haven’t been lifted, though they now know of a case where it has been: Tony. Considering that didn’t end so well, they’re not entirely at ease with the situation anyway. Not that Stephen minds; he doesn’t talk to them often, but he watches them, vowing that he’ll still help them. Just like he promised to help Tony.

It seems like he’s trying to make up for all the ways he failed Tony, and it’ll never be enough. 

So he wanders the Avengers Compound, making sure not to encounter anyone. Perhaps it’s odd for him to just aimlessly walk around, but it brings him some comfort. He can’t say why; perhaps it’s just that any place other than the Sanctum will do, for now. There’s fewer memories of Tony here, despite the fact that the man must’ve strolled these hallways dozens of times. 

Perhaps it’s not a surprise that he ends up at the hangars. The ships are still standing there; there are men and women walking around in the hangar, fixing them up. He remembers when Tony was working on them, and the numbness settles in his chest. Still, he can’t quite force himself to walk away. 

To avoid being sent away, he keeps walking. He doesn’t think anyone will actually call him out on loitering here, but it’s best to avoid questions altogether. Mainly because he’s not sure he could give anyone a coherent answer. He certainly hasn’t thought of one yet.

One of the technicians does look at him, when Stephen has walked around without going anywhere for too long. Perhaps the man merely feels uncomfortable being watched, but Stephen doesn’t want anyone to ask him anything. He picks a door he’s never been through yet, the one he’s closest to, and walks through. 

The lights turn on automatically, as his appearance is detected. Stephen is in a room that he has never seen before, and that seems like it’s hardly ever used. Some old tools are discarded all around; the only sound is the buzzing from the lights. He walks around, resting his fingers on the desk. They come away with dust, and he frowns. It looks like a sort of workshop; certainly the Avengers must have used it like one, once upon a time.

Stephen explores the space for a while, but it doesn’t look like anyone’s been in it for a long time. Perhaps the workshop was discarded, but he can’t see for what reason that would have been. It takes him a few minutes to stumble over the metal door. He pulls the handle, but it won’t open – not even when he uses all his strength. There is an odd sort of resistance, one that he recognizes all too well.

With a simple spell, the handle lights up, and Stephen sees the magic. The enchantment placed on the handle is one done masterfully, but with haste. Besides that, it’s not a spell by someone who’s been Sanctum-trained. The energy is too different, the trace too chaotic. 

He didn’t bring his phone with him from the Sanctum, so Stephen has no choice to walk back. The working man that was regarding him earlier looks up in suspicion, but this time, Stephen doesn’t mean to avoid contact.

‘’Do you know where I can find Vision?’’ he asks politely.

The man makes a face and shrugs. ‘’The android? No idea. Captain America is upstairs, though, if you want one of the Avengers.’’

He doesn’t, really, but this is too strange to let go. Stephen thanks the man and goes upstairs, meaning to find any of the Avengers. The Compound is full of other people that Stephen doesn’t know, but he can’t find any of the heroes so simply. He is almost getting frustrated when he runs into Bruce Banner.

He hasn’t talked to Banner much, beyond the occasional strategic planning. He’s heard from the man from Tony more often, though. Banner seems as silent as ever, but his eyes are clearly focused on Stephen’s, determined in ways the sorcerer hasn’t seen him before.

‘’Good afternoon,’’ he says civilly, but doesn’t give Stephen a chance to answer. ‘’Could I talk to you for a moment, doctor?’’

‘’Not really,’’ Stephen says. ‘’I think I stumbled into something downstairs, near the hangars. I need someone to tell me what a certain room used to be, and I may need Vision.’’

‘’Why?’’ Banner asks.

‘’Because I may need him to phase through a wall,’’ Stephen replies wryly. ‘’There’s an enchanted lock, and it’s not Miss Maximoff’s magic, either. I know hers well enough by now. Something is wrong, and I’m not sure what it is.’’

Banner seems dubious, but he nods and leaves to find Vision for him. He comes back only a few minutes later; not just Vision, but Captain Rogers has joined as well. All of them expectantly stare at Stephen, but he hardly has an explanation yet. The four of them return to the hangar; now the people working on the ships can stare at all of them.

Stephen opens the door to the dusty workshop, and walks in. ‘’Oh, this is Tony’s old working place,’’ Banner tells him. ‘’These hangars were built only later, and Tony moved his lab upstairs. I don’t think anyone’s been here in ages.’’

‘’What’s the problem here, anyway?’’ Rogers asks. ‘’Some kind of spell on a door?’’

They reach the end of the workshop, with the metal door. ‘’This one,’’ Stephen says, pulling the handle. ‘’It won’t budge – it’s spelled.’’

He steps away as Rogers moves next to him, clearly intent on trying as well. He pulls for a while, but the handle doesn’t move. ‘’You’re right,’’ the Captain says.

Stephen tries not to roll his eyes. ‘’I know I’m right,’’ he says pointedly. ‘’What kind of room was this?’’

‘’We have rooms like those right now,’’ Banner explains. ‘’They’re for the more dangerous kind of experiments. This is basically a room to contain any threats to the building or anyone walking in here. The doors are made of carbon steel – you’re not going to get through these as easily. Why did you even try to get in here?’’

That’s a difficult question, and so Stephen just shrugs. ‘’Just be glad that I did,’’ he says. ‘’Someone doesn’t want anyone to get in here. I can’t break this spell – not unless there’s a counter-spell, and I’d rather not leave to find one. Vision, can you go through? It’s only the handle that is affected.’’

Vision nods. ‘’Carbon steel won’t keep me out,’’ he informs them. First, he sticks his hand through the material – once that is done, the rest of his body follows. With a click, the handle is unlocked. It’s only been enchanted on one side, clearly. 

Stephen opens the door and goes in first, ready for anything that might wait for him there. The lights flicker on once they sense his presence, and Vision becomes tangible again. Once he gets sight of what is in the room, he goes stiff.

‘’Oh my god,’’ Banner says, his eyes wide. ‘’These are – they can’t have been dead for a long time.’’

A room full of people, cold and unmoving. Stephen kneels beside the third body. It’s a face he knows very well. Mordo’s eyes are still open, staring upstairs with a vacant gaze. There’s a pained expression on his face – on all of the faces of his followers. There’s more bodies than Stephen cares to count, but it looks like all his followers have followed Mordo in death. Despite the certainty, he takes Mordo’s wrist and feels for a pulse. Just to be sure, he also checks for a spell. There is no spell that still would have any effect, but Stephen knows the after-effects of curse when he feels one. Faint traces of a cruel curse still linger in the air, and it is almost enough to make him sick.

Derrick Price lies a few feet away, pale and with dried blood stuck to his face. He looks equally horrified, and more like a boy than anything else. Just a year ago, he’d been in Stephen’s Sanctum, and nothing had been wrong yet.

They’ve all been cursed to death, and by the looks of it, not a painless and quick one. Stephen shudders. He turns to Rogers, who’s still looking on in horror. Banner is checking the other bodies for pulses, but Stephen is sure he won’t find one. Still, he won’t stop the scientist from looking. ‘’Call for Wong and Master Minoru,’’ he says sharply. ‘’Tell them we have found Mordo and his followers.’’

~*~

Wong and Minoru are quiet, as they look upon the dead sorcerers. ‘’Who could have done this?’’ Wong asks. These sorcerers may have opposed them and attacked them, but no one deserves a death like this. Stephen has had quite enough of death.

‘’Mordo’s ally,’’ he answers quietly. He’s had time to think about this already. ‘’Mordo was ready to turn to us and give up the secrets. Whoever this ally is, he must not have agreed. He’s powerful – he killed all of these sorcerers, and no one knew.’’

‘’Why have they been left here?’’ Vision asks.

Stephen lets out a deep breath. ‘’I’m not sure, but I do have a theory,’’ he starts slowly. ‘’Mordo came to tell us he was betrayed by his ally. In the same breath, he told us that Galactus was coming. What if those two events were connected?’’

All of the people in the room are focused on him. ‘’Let’s get out of here first,’’ Rogers says. ‘’I’m not sure I can think in this room.’’

They only move towards Tony’s old workshop. Stephen leans against a dusty desk, thoughts still running through his head. ‘’What if the ally was someone working behind the scenes, all this time?’’ he says. ‘’We always thought Mordo was behind the curses – what if Mordo was manipulated, too? What if Mordo’s ally has something to do with Galactus’ appearance?’’

‘’If that’s true, then that ally can’t be an ordinary sorcerer,’’ Wong says. ‘’There’s no one alive with that kind of power – not since the Ancient One passed away. And why would anyone want Galactus to come?’’

‘’I don’t know,’’ Stephen says in frustration. ‘’There’s too many gaps. Why did this sorcerer need Mordo, if they have the power to summon such a creature? Why did he let Mordo go around and curse people for his own sake?’’

‘’A diversion,’’ Minoru offers, but she’s frowning. ‘’If we were focusing on Mordo, then we wouldn’t have the time to focus on Galactus. It did interfere with each other, after all. Smoke and mirrors.’’

‘’But we weren’t supposed to know about the curses, were we?’’ Stephen points out. There’s too much, still, that doesn’t make sense. All he knows is that Mordo has been cruelly cursed and murdered, and that something else is at play. He can’t say anything for certain yet.

‘’Wasn’t it?’’ Wong asks carefully. ‘’They did leave the note, when Tony wasn’t with us for that long yet. They could have tried to capture our attention.’’

‘’We can’t say how much of that was Mordo’s decision or his ally’s,’’ Stephen reminds them all, crossing his arms. ‘’The only way we’re going to find out anything is if we figure out who this mysterious ally is. Someone who isn’t Sanctum-trained, at the very least.’’

None of them know how to answer that question; nor is it very obvious how they’re going to find out. Whoever this ally is, they are a puppet master, Stephen knows. Mordo wouldn’t have gone along so far if his ally was not extremely persuasive. It’d been difficult to find Mordo – it’s going to be impossible to get a lead on whoever he worked with. Fortunately, Stephen doesn’t mean to give up so easily. He will get whoever is responsible for all of this death and misfortune.

They’re interrupted by Wanda, coming down to look for them. She raises her eyebrows at finding them all together in the abandoned workshop, the air so solemn. ‘’What happened?’’ she asks. ‘’No – come with me, first. There’s someone coming.’’

‘’Send away any visitors,’’ Rogers commands. ‘’We’re having a situation here that we should deal with first. We can’t just let these people lie here. They deserve a funeral.’’

Wanda tilts her head at that. ‘’I’m going to need to know more about that,’’ she says slowly, ‘’but it’s not exactly visitors I was talking about. There’s a spaceship incoming – we can’t make contact, but they’re heading right for us.’’

‘’The Guardians?’’ Stephen asks, and straightens himself. The desk is cold against his hands as he leans on it. He can’t think of anyone else who would come.

‘’They would have made contact first, right?’’ Banner says, but he sounds sceptical.

‘’I’m not sure, but suit up,’’ Rogers tells all of them. ‘’We’ll deal with this later.’’

Stephen shares a concerned look with Wong. He follows the Avengers out after a second of doubt. He doesn’t feel comfortable leaving the bodies here, but there is hardly anything for it. If something is coming at them, he wants to help. All of his grief and anger has come to such a point that he needs a way to let it out, and a good fight will help, at the very least. Tony’s absence is a never-ending ache. He’s not sure that will ever end.

They’re short of two Avengers; only Romanoff and Rhodes are not there when they assemble on the field in front of the hangars. There’s a ship coming, but against the light of the sun, it’s hard to make out anything else. At least it’s not very large; Stephen squints while it comes closer and closer.

Wong and Minoru stand beside him, both ready for combat. The Avengers are less prepared, without uniform; Stephen doesn’t doubt they’ll make every move count, however. They don’t need their outfits to make them into who they are.

The ship lands, and it does strike him as familiar. ‘’It’s the Guardians,’’ Vision says, clearly relieved. ‘’It’s their ship!’’

Stephen relaxes his stance at once. ‘’Why didn’t they come earlier?’’ he asks.

‘’Why did they come at all?’’ Minoru points out. ‘’They’re not from here. Why come back?’’

‘’Let’s find out,’’ Rogers states, and the group cautiously moves forward. There’s no sound coming from the ship at all, for a few moments, and Stephen starts worrying again. When they’re almost in front of the Guardians’ slightly battered ship, the door opens with a creaky noise. 

The raccoon comes out first. He grins upon seeing them. ‘’Hi there, Earthlings!’’ he mock-salutes them. ‘’We had to make a slight detour, but we have a return package for you.’’

‘’A return package?’’ Wanda echoes.

An answer is unnecessary, as the last person Stephen expected comes out of the ship. It’s Tony – hair a mess and bruises under his eyes, but it’s Tony. Alive and well.

‘’Tony,’’ he breathes out, and before he can think about it he moves, pushing away Rogers and Banner to get there first. With a crash, he lands into Tony’s chest, embracing the man tightly. He’s warm and real in Stephen’s arms, and he can feel Tony clasping him just as desperately.

‘’I promised I’d come back,’’ Tony whispers into Stephen’s shoulder, his voice rough. Stephen doesn’t even realize that his tears are spilling until he sees the wetness on Tony’s borrowed shirt, and he doesn’t care. Tony is here, and he’s alive and healthy and Stephen’s – there is nothing more to ask for. This is not even anything he thought he could ask for in the first place.

He’d thought that this was all the happiness he was going to get – a few months, and then gone. And now Tony is back here, where he belongs.

His fingers flutter upwards to Tony’s jaw and he pushes their lips together in a bruising kiss. He doesn’t mind that there are other people – he just needs to convince himself that Tony is here, and that they’re both fine. Tony presses back, and it only lasts for a few seconds, but that’s all they need. He draws away, content to just hold Tony close.

‘’You utter idiot,’’ he murmurs fondly, firmly holding him. Tony’s probably going to have some bruises, but Stephen is incapable of letting go at this point. He doesn’t think that Tony minds.

‘’Uh, I’m sorry to interrupt,’’ Rogers says, clearly uncomfortable, ‘’but what happened? Tony?’’

At that, Tony gently pushes for Stephen to let him go. With some effort, he manages, but he sticks close to him. Tony puts his hand on his side, glaring at Rogers. ‘’I was cursed, went up in space to save all your asses, fortunately didn’t die doing so, went off to an alien planet and came back. Now, it’s good to see you, too, Steve.’’

Steve looks regretful and awkward, like he doesn’t know how to hold himself. Stephen only knows partly what occurred between him and Tony, and can imagine the Captain doesn’t know how to act around the man. Still, he could show some more sympathy. The Guardians behind Tony are glaring as well, but remain silent as they watch the reunion unfold.

‘’What he means, Tony,’’ Banner says, pushing up his glasses, ‘’is welcome back. We missed you so much.’’

With that, the scientist moves forward to hug Tony. Stephen steps aside, glad to let Tony reunite with his friends. If he’s the only one who notices Tony trembling and closing his eyes, he won’t say anything. Banner hugs him for a long few seconds, and this is what Stephen wanted for him. To have his friends back, and to have them recognize him again. It’s been so long that he’s had this kind of friendship to rely on, and he deserves all of it.

‘’I’m glad to be back, too,’’ Tony says, kindly patting his friend on his back. ‘’Missed you, Bruce.’’

Rogers goes in for a hug, too. ‘’I’m sorry,’’ the captain mutters. Tony just smiles at him.

Stephen doesn’t wait to get back his place at Tony’s side. ‘’How did you survive?’’ he asks, and he can’t help the pain that’s still lingering in his voice. ‘’We all thought you were dead. I thought –‘’

‘’I’m sorry,’’ Tony says, and squeezes his hand in comfort. ‘’The Guardians saved me. We couldn’t come back because Quill was injured – we had to go to this alien planet first, to make sure he healed. It’s not until he woke that we figured out the curse was gone. We came back to Earth once we could, but the Grunds didn't have time to replace our communicators. We couldn’t contact you, or we would’ve left a message earlier.’’

‘’We’re glad you’re safe, Tony,’’ Minoru says, smiling at him as she regards the two of them. 

‘’Where’s Rhodey?’’ Tony asks, some doubt creeping into his voice. ‘’Everyone is alright on this side, right? I’d – Rhodey, Pepper, Peter – they remember, right?’’

Stephen feels his heart tighten. Tony sounds so insecure, and there’s no hiding how important this is to him. The three people he cares about most in the world, the three people he wanted to remember him most badly – and none of them are here to watch his safe return. Stephen remembers Peter crying in his arms, and how hopeless he’d felt. He thinks of Rhodes storming off after the battle, clearly torn and desperate and mourning. He thinks of how he himself felt, lost in his grief.

Tony is getting all of them back, and if Stephen has something to say about it, he’s getting them back as soon as possible.

‘’They do,’’ Stephen says. ‘’We’re going to get them. There’s just – a slight matter we may have to deal with first.’’

Tony frowns. ‘’Which is?’’

Stephen grimaces, looking at Wong and Minoru. ‘’Mordo's death.’’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going on a holiday for a few weeks! I do have all chapters ready to post, fortunately, but I'm hoping the internet won't be too bad, since I'm in the mountains. If I'm late at updating, it will be because I don't have any connection, but hopefully it won't come to that.


	41. Chapter 41

It’s almost the same as when the Guardians left for the first time. The same ship, with a few new impairments and a few new repairs, and the same people, at the same place.

Tony hugs Gamora goodbye. ‘’I can’t thank you enough,’’ he tells her and the rest of the Guardians. ‘’For saving my life and everything else.’’

‘’Don’t worry about that, buddy,’’ Rocket says. ‘’We got you covered, yeah? Maybe we’ll come back for some new guns in a while.’’

‘’And we’ll be the mightiest of them all!’’ Drax roars.

‘’I am Groot,’’ the tree informs all of them, huffing impatiently.

The group stands before him, and Tony feels a swell of fondness. He hasn’t known the Guardians for a long time, but he likes their controlled madness. Gamora just rolls her eyes and takes Peter Quill’s hand. ‘’Maybe we’ll see you around, someday,’’ Quill says. ‘’Thanks for the music, too.’’

Tony can feel Stephen shift beside him. ‘’I hope you’ll enjoy that,’’ he winks at them. ‘’And hey, if you want some new songs, Earth’s just a few planets away. See you around, Guardians.’’

‘’What did you give them?’’ Stephen whispers to him. ‘’You didn’t exactly have the time to throw something together.’’

Tony grins. ‘’I didn’t know Wong was so old-fashioned to use mix tapes. I’m sure the Guardians will enjoy his Beyoncé collection.’’

Stephen sniggers beside him.

With a few last heartfelt farewells, the Guardians leave again. Tony waves at them until they’re long gone. He’s going to miss them, but they’re certainly going to be back. And in the meanwhile, he can reconnect with his old friends.

He’s only been back for a few hours now, and apparently, Rhodey and Pepper were doing some RP because everyone thought Tony was dead, before. The Avengers were reluctant to call them out and upset the whole world news again, especially because it only meant a few more hours of them not knowing. And it’s not like Tony didn’t have enough of explaining to do to the friends that are already here.

Or to get some explanations, anyway. Stephen has filled him in on exactly on everything that’s occurred since the moment Tony left the Earth’s atmosphere, and it hasn’t exactly been a walk in the park. Tony heard the lingering touches of grief in Stephen’s voice, and he means to make up for it. They haven’t exactly been alone, however, with everything that happened all at once.

He is now, though. The Guardians are gone, and all the Avengers and the sorcerers are working on what happened to Mordo. It’s still odd to think about it; Tony has spent months trying to find the guy and make him release Tony from his spell, and here they are. Mordo is dead and he’s not cursed anymore.

Stephen brings him back to the present by kissing him soundly. Tony just hums and leans into it. He’s only gone without Stephen for a few days, but it feels like eternity. It’s a reassuring kiss – not so much heat and desperation anymore, just homely comfort. Tony puts his hands on Stephen’s neck, keeping him close so it won’t end. Stephen just shifts closer to him, his hands resting on the nape of Tony’s neck. Both of them are just content to stand there for a while, revelling in each other’s presence.

It’s Stephen who ends it, resting his forehead against Tony’s and nuzzling their noses together. Tony feels like his heart is ready to burst with love for this wonderfully impossible man, the sorcerer who he’s missed so much. Stephen’s pale eyes are fixed on his own, and Tony doesn’t want to look away ever again, even as he brushes a feather-light kiss against Stephen’s welcoming lips before pulling away again. Despite how delighted Stephen looks right there, Tony can’t help but notice the dark shadows under his eyes, and the paleness of his skin.

‘’Hey, doctor,’’ he mutters. ‘’You know what I’m thinking about?’’

Stephen sighs, but there’s a smile playing on his lips. ‘’Why don’t you tell me?’’

‘’I was thinking about tucking you in bed, and maybe joining you when I’m done.’’

‘’Hmm. That sounds lovely. And after?’’

Tony snorts. ‘’We’d sleep, you dirty-minded scoundrel. You look like you’re dead on your feet.’’

‘’Well, I’ve barely slept the last few nights,’’ Stephen confesses, and ducks to kiss him quickly. ‘’But I don’t think we have time for sleeping, yet. We have to do something about Mordo’s ally, and I’m sure that Pepper and Rhodey are on their way. Wong is picking up Peter for you right now. They’re going to be so glad to see you.’’

It’s easy to lean against Stephen and breathe in the familiar scent of prickly magic and mint soap. Stephen always smells nice and clean, and it’s comforting like little else. Tony takes a deep breath in the hollow of Stephen’s neck and nuzzles into it. ‘’What am I even going to say?’’ he mumbles. 

He’s released from the embrace as Stephen takes him by the shoulders and looks at him intently. ‘’You’re just going to talk to them,’’ he says. ‘’And they’re going to talk to you, and they’ll be who they’ve always been. The persons you love most.’’

Tony lets his shoulders sag. ‘’That’s you,’’ he says earnestly. ‘’They’re – I mean, I love them, of course I do. But I don’t think I’ve ever told you how much you mean to me. You know that this isn’t going to change anything, right? Me not being cursed, I mean. I wouldn’t have made it without you – I would’ve gone insane, seriously. The only reason I’m here now is because of you, and I’m not going to let you go. I love you, alright? I love you a lot.’’

Stephen responds by smiling at him, his eyes gentle and open. ‘’Tony, I thought you were dead. I thought I’d lost you forever, and I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think. If you think I’m going to let you go anywhere, you _have_ gone insane. I love you, too. More than you could possibly know.’’

‘’I think I have an inkling,’’ Tony says, and takes Stephen’s hands. ‘’So. I know this must be kind of a stupid question, but – is Dum-E alright?’’

Stephen laughs, but as he does so, he presses Tony closer by holding onto his middle and pressing a kiss to his lips. ‘’You unbelievable man,’’ the sorcerer says, still grinning widely. ‘’He’s fine, I promise. He’s in my room, actually. The Cloak is his best friend now, I think. Whenever I’m at the Sanctum, it abandons me to spend time with Dum-E instead.’’

‘’Well, weirder things have happened,’’ Tony judges.

Stephen’s laugh turns into a soft chuckle, and he goes to say something before they’re interrupted. Vision starts slightly at seeing them, and Tony shuffles a bit further away from Stephen. He does tangle their fingers together, not quite ready to let go of his sorcerer completely.

Vision clearly decides to ignore their displays of affection. ‘’Miss Potts and Colonel Rhodes are seated in the first conference room,’’ he says pointedly. ‘’Young Peter is also waiting with them for your arrival. They seem quite eager to see you.’’

‘’Right,’’ Tony says, scraping his throat. For some reason, he feels nervous. He knows he shouldn’t be, but it’s hard to let go of the feeling. Stephen lets go of his fingers and takes his entire hand, quietly reassuring him. Tony nods and squeezes. ‘’Thanks for telling me, Vision.’’

Tony releases Stephen’s hand and starts making his way to the room his friends will be waiting. He has walked here dozens of times – the Avengers Compound is as familiar to him as a home would be. Every step he takes, he has taken a hundred times before, and yet he finds himself counting all of them. 

Twenty-four steps to the first door out of the hangar; thirteen steps before turning right; seventeen steps towards the stairs; twenty-one step up the stairs; nine steps and turning right; twelve steps to reach the first conference room.

The doors are glass, and he stops just before they will see him. Stephen stands behind him, an endless amount of support. He doesn’t say anything – maybe because there’s nothing he could say that would convince Tony more than his encouraging smile would. Tony nods at him, and takes a deep breath before taking that final step and pushing open the door.

Rhodey, Pepper and Peter look up at once; Rhodey is the first to rise, but Peter beats him to the hug. Tony can barely get a word of his mouth before the kid launches himself at him, and all he can do is catch him and hug back.

‘’Hey, Pete,’’ he says, arms full of emotional teenager. ‘’Miss me, did you?’’

The kid slackens in his arms. ‘’I’m so sorry, Mr Stark,’’ he mutters. ‘’I can’t believe I forgot about you. And I didn’t recognize you at the museum! And then again, at the Compound!’’

‘’Well, not exactly your fault, was it?’’ he says easily, and tightens his hold on the boy. Peter has grown in these past few months, and Tony only feels sorry to have missed the several months in the kid’s life. Fortunately, however, he does have a lot of time in the future to see Peter shooting up and growing into a man. And that’s all that matters, in the end.

Over Peter’s shoulders, he can see Rhodey and Pepper. They’re standing, quietly, waiting for him and Peter to finish their hug. Pepper’s eyes are red and swollen, and Rhodey looks grimmer than Tony has seen him in a long while. He did not know how he thought their reunion would go, but maybe not this - this uncertain air, quiet and heavy.

‘’Hey, kid,’’ he says quietly, and lets go of Peter. ‘’Is it okay if I talk to you later? I kind of need to talk to Pepper and Rhodey for a bit.’’

Peter turns back and seems to grow aware of the slight tension. ‘’Oh, yeah, sure,’’ he says, the tips of his ears growing pink. ‘’I’ll just – wait in the hallway?’’

‘’I’ll go with you,’’ Stephen offers to the teenager, giving Tony a significant look. 

‘’Oh, cool,’’ Peter says, perking up a bit. Tony sends Stephen a grateful smile, and watches them walk out in the back. He can still see them through the glass, talking easily. Stephen seems to be growing fond of Peter as well, and Tony enjoys that thought more than he’d ever guessed.

It’s not the time to ponder on Stephen and Peter, though. It’s time to turn to his oldest friends in the world. ‘’Tony,’’ Rhodey says, taking a step forward but then halting. Pepper just trembles and wraps her own arms around herself, not saying anything.

‘’Hey, platypus,’’ Tony greets him wryly, putting his hands in his pocket. ‘’Hey, Pepper. What, no tears for your long-lost boss?’’

She breaks into a single sob at that, covering her mouth to stop herself. Rhodey seems pained at the entire situation, but his expression turns determined. He takes the final few strides towards Tony and hugs him quickly. Tony takes his hands out of his own pocket and pats Rhodey’s back.

He’s missed them. He truly has, and now it’s gone and become awkward around the three of them.

If a few tears slip out, no one will care. He’s wanted them to remember him for so long – Peter remembers him, and he has Stephen. Things are looking up, despite the discomfort of this situation. He loves them both, he’s loved them for long years, and he’s resolutely convinced that this shouldn’t come in between the three of them.

‘’We missed you, man,’’ Rhodey says, and pulls back. His eyes seem a bit shinier, too. ‘’We’re so, so sorry – but there’s – we can’t. When I remembered you, and I realized what I’d done – I’ve never felt so horrible in my life. All I could think of was you leaving that message, and the last time – I didn’t even know your name. Any time you were in a room, and I had no idea. And when we’d just – I kept thinking of how you found out – you looked so lost. And I can't tell you how bad we feel about it, Tones.’’

Tony thinks back to that moment, when he’d found Rhodey and Pepper together. How it’d felt like the world had stopped – how desperate he’d been. Things have changed so much, since then, but Rhodey is still looking at him like it happened yesterday. Maybe it feels like that, for him, despite of how much time has passed since then. Over half a year, and Tony doesn’t feel quite so desperate anymore.

‘’What about you, Pep?’’ he asks quietly.

‘’I missed you,’’ she says, and she sticks out her lower lip despite the fact that she’s still trembling. Her eyes are shining with tears, and some of them trickle out, but she doesn’t comment on that. ‘’And – it never would’ve happened if I’d remembered you. But James and I – Tony, you have to know. I love him. I’m not coming back.’’

Tony smiles at her, and crosses his arms as the two of them stare at him. ‘’What about you, Rhodey?’’ he asks. ‘’You’re not going to leave her?’’

Rhodey is silent for a few long seconds, but then shakes his head. ‘’I’d do a lot for you, man, but I can’t do that,’’ he says, though there’s regret in his voice. ‘’I know you love her – I know you do, but these past few months – I love her, too, alright. I never thought I’d love someone as much as I’d love her.’’

Tony regards the two of them for a few moments, and then shakes his head at them, still smiling. ‘’I’m happy for you guys,’’ he says. ‘’I mean, alright, I’ll be honest, I was pretty much heart-broken at first. Of course I was – that was… well, that was a rough time. But you weren’t seriously thinking I was going to make things go right back to the way they were, right?’’

They’re silent for a while, exchanging glares. Tony sighs, and takes the few steps that he has to, in order to enfold Pepper in his arms. She responds in kind, though she’s clearly confused by his reaction. Rhodey joins the both of them, and they stand there in silence for long minutes. None of them keep it dry, and Tony can finally feel himself settle somewhat, despite the tears. It’s like all of his tension is draining out of him.

He loves them, and they still love him. It’s just a bit different, but that’s not to say it’s any worse. And he’s honestly happy for them. They deserve two people like each other, honest and wonderful.

‘’I’ve never seen a couple better matched,’’ he says, as he releases them, and he kisses Pepper’s cheek. ‘’You have my honest blessing. And dibs on both best man and bridesmaid. You know I could totally pull that off.’’

Pepper laughs through her tears, and gives him a final hug before leaning in against Rhodey. ‘’If anyone could, it’s you,’’ she says, sounding strangled. ‘’I missed you so much, Tony. You’re honestly okay?’’

‘’You moved on a long time ago, didn’t you?’’ Rhodey asks quietly, a realization dawning in his eyes. 

Tony shrugs. ‘’Don’t take me wrong, I’ve loved Pepper for a long time – but you know, after a while, it just faded away. And you know, I fell in love with someone else, too. Someone I couldn’t imagine leaving now.’’

Pepper frowns, and takes him by the shoulder. ‘’You fell in love with someone?’’ she asks, her lips tilting into a sincere smile. ‘’That’s – while you were cursed? Who?’’

Tony smiles, and looks towards the window. Stephen and Peter are still standing there, talking animatedly, gesturing. ‘’See that sorcerer over there?’’ he asks. ‘’Turns out he’s really into me. Turns out I’m really into him, too.’’

‘’Stephen Strange?’’ Rhodey repeats in disbelief.

‘’Stephen Strange,’’ Tony confirms. ‘’Who would’ve thought, right?’’

‘’Not me, for sure,’’ Rhodey says, staring at the glass as if he still quite can’t grasp the concept. Tony can guess that it’s surprising; here they are, after they haven’t thought of Tony in months. The last they were aware of is Tony being in love with Pepper, and now it turns out all of them have moved on.

‘’Yeah, you should meet him.’’

‘’In a minute, but, Tony –‘’ Pepper starts and trails off. She shares a look with Rhodey before resolutely turning back towards him. ‘’We’ve got something else to tell you as well.’’

Tony frowns. ‘’What? Don’t tell me you’ve already secretly married and I can’t be your bridesmaid anymore.’’

Her lips tilt into a wry smile. ‘’Not exactly,’’ she admits. ‘’I probably won’t fit into a dress anymore, in a few short months. Don’t tell anyone else, but – I’m pregnant. Five weeks, now.’’

That is enough to shock Tony into silence. He stares for a few moments as Rhodey shuffles closer towards Pepper, slinging an arm around her and pressing a kiss to her cheek. Tony just looks in between them. He’d known they were together, but this isn’t what he’d expected to happen. ‘’You’re pregnant?’’ he repeats. ‘’That’s – oh, wow. Congratulations!’’

‘’It’s not something we meant to happen,’’ Pepper clarifies. ‘’It just happened, and well. We’re not getting any younger, and it’s something we want. Both of us. You’re not mad, are you?’’

‘’Mad?’’ Tony says, and thinks about it. He’s not mad – not in the least. He breaks into a smile. ‘’Why would you – it’s amazing! I always thought you’d be a great mum – and Rhodey would make an awesome dad. I mean, I didn’t think I would see you trying it out on the same kid, but that works! That’s awesome!’’ 

He goes in to hug them both at once. Rhodey lets out something that’s in between a relieved huff and a laugh, and pats him on the back. ‘’Man, I’m so glad you’re back,’’ his friend says. ‘’You’re always ready to babysit, aren’t you?’’

Tony laughs. ‘’Already trying to poach off your unborn spawn, platypus?’’ he teases. ‘’No, no, don’t take it back. I’m going to be your baby’s favourite babysitter. And I have a live-in doctor for any time your baby bumps their head or feels a bit sick. Ideal, isn’t it?’’

‘’A live-in doctor?’’ Pepper asks, and then her eyes fall on Stephen again. ‘’Ah. You’re that serious about him, aren’t you?’’

Tony stills a bit, and looks towards Stephen, too. The sorcerer is still in conversation with Peter, cheerfully gesturing with his hand. He’s missed him, and he can’t think he will ever want to leave Stephen. He’s never felt so certain of anything in his life, and the best thing is that he’s certain that Stephen wants the same things that he does. 

‘’Yeah, I am,’’ he says quietly, and pulls back to walk towards the glass walls. ‘’You should meet him. Hey, Stephen.’’ He knocks on the glass that divides them. Stephen and Peter look up in surprise at the sound, but open the door soon after. Stephen walks in, his facial expression neutral as he takes in all three of them. His wary eyes betray his uncertainty, though.

‘’You alright?’’ he quietly asks Tony.

Tony smiles, and looks around him. The four people he loves most are in here. Rhodey and Pepper are holding hands, uncertainly smiling at Stephen, but definitely ready to get to know him. Peter just seems glad to be there. Stephen is still looking at Tony, waiting for an answer.

‘’I couldn’t be better,’’ he says earnestly.

‘’Hi,’’ Rhodey says, and takes Stephen’s hand. ‘’I know we’ve met, but we’ve never been properly introduced, so I’m James Rhodes. I hear you’re dating my best friend?’’

Stephen’s look of horror is hilarious.

~*~

They bury Mordo the day after. The New York Sanctum pick out the people who left them and find a good final resting place for them in the cold rain. The London Sanctum does the same, and Stephen remembers the bleak look on Wright’s face when he’d heard the news and came to pick them up with a few of his Masters. 

There are more than a few sorcerers who didn’t belong to any Sanctum, and they bury those, as well. They don’t have a name or know of any loved ones, but they try their best at making it a meaningful funeral, anyway.

Stephen thinks back to the day they buried Master Haman. Tony had been beside him, too, and so were Wong and the other Masters. He misses Master Haman; they still haven’t found his murderer, and Stephen resolves to find the one responsible after they’ve cleaned up their messes. He means to unravel this mystery as soon as possible, though he’s not sure how they’re going to do that, yet.

‘’I’m not sure how to feel,’’ Tony says beside him, watching the simple headstone above Mordo’s grave. ‘’The guy cursed me and fought us.’’

‘’He didn’t deserve to go this way,’’ Stephen says, his heart heavy as he watches the black stone, too. ‘’I know you don’t have any reason to mourn Mordo, and I know his actions were terrible – but he saved me, once. He convinced the Ancient One to give me a chance. He was my friend, and I know he did wrong things, but I know that he wasn’t a bad man, deep down. And he’ll never prove it to anyone, and that’s perhaps the saddest thing.’’

Tony hums. ‘’Do you think he would’ve changed?’’

‘’I don’t know. Maybe not. I would’ve liked to know for certain. Besides – we still have no idea how to lift the curse on everyone else. Mordo won’t be able to lift it, anymore, and breaking a dead man’s curse – well, it may be decades before we find out how to do that.’’

‘’There’s other cursed people?’’ Tony asks, turning to Stephen. ‘’When did that happen?’’

‘’We already knew, you just don’t remember,’’ Stephen tells him kindly. ‘’I remember a few of them, and the other Masters went down there too and remembered them, in order to help think of a solution. Even Minoru came down to help; I think she cares more than she lets on.’’

‘’Well, of course she does. She really does respect you a lot, you know.’’

They watch Master Minoru; she’s there, too, talking to Master Moretti. Moretti hasn’t been the same since Master Haman’s awful death, but perhaps she just needed some time and the right words. Minoru has a steady hand on Moretti’s arm, and a compassionate gaze as she looks upon the other Master. 

Lydia suddenly comes towards them. Her hair is loose, for once, the brown curls flowing freely. It makes her look younger, but her eyes are older and solemn. ‘’Master Strange,’’ she inclines her head to the sorcerer. ‘’Mr Stark. I know you were cursed, but I wanted to apologize for not recognizing you so often. Thank you for your assistance in the Sanctum.’’

Tony’s lips tilt into a small grin. ‘’Thank you, Lydia. There’s nothing to forgive, you know.’’

She smiles and looks over to the Italian Master who’s still talking with Minoru, a few paces away. ‘’I should go back,’’ she mutters, and leaves them with a quick nod of her head.

‘’She’s grown, these past few months,’’ Stephen notices. ‘’Studying under Moretti has done her a world of good. I’m thinking of making her a Master, in a few more months. If she’s willing to study beyond potions, of course. She’s capable to be wonderful at the defensive arts. Perhaps even better than Master Chen, in time.’’

Tony looks after the girl and the mature way she holds herself. She’s still young, but there’s no doubt that she is capable of many things that she’s not aware of yet. She reminds him of Peter, in a way. ‘’Don’t push her too fast,’’ Tony reminds him, and turns back to Stephen, taking his hand. ‘’She’ll get there without the extra pressure.’’

‘’There’s no haste,’’ Stephen says quietly. ‘’She will not be a replacement of Master Haman. It’s too soon for us to gain a new Master – but it’s a thought. Besides, I mean to find Mordo’s ally first. I’m not comfortable lifting the lockdown on the Sanctum yet. Galactus is gone and Mordo is dead, but there’s things we don’t know yet.’’

‘’What does Wong have to say about that?’’

‘’He agrees. So does Minoru. I haven’t had the chance to talk to Wright yet.’’

‘’I will do that for you,’’ a new voice comes from behind them. They both turn to find Minoru looking at them, her eyebrows slightly raised. ‘’I’ve been meaning to talk to Wright, so I’ll mention this as well. I’m sure he’s eager to help you find Mordo’s ally; he seemed to be furious at everything that’s happened.’’

‘’He has a right to be,’’ Stephen acknowledges. 

She nods slightly. ‘’As long as he won’t try to do anything reckless,’’ she says. ‘’Well, I’m off. I’ll find you if I have any news.’’

‘’Thank you for all your help, with the curse,’’ Tony says. ‘’I never really got to thank you for the time you spent searching. I’m not exactly your problem, I know, but – I do appreciate it. And Master Zhao’s help, of course.’’

Minoru’s gaze softens at that, and glances at Stephen for a second before her eyes land on Tony again. ‘’You belong with the Sanctum now,’’ she says. ‘’And we, at the Sanctum, may not always agree with each other, but we always support each other.’’

Tony inclines her head at her, the way he’s seen so many other sorcerers do in respect. She repeats the gesture at him. Without words, she creates a portal behind her and disappears.


	42. Chapter 42

It’s almost like the time when Tony had only been there for a couple of days. Stephen, Wong and Tony are all seated in the library. One of the changes is that Dum-E is there as well, always leisurely browsing his newspapers. Wong is reorganising some of the manuscripts that have been put away wrong – magical libraries seem to be no different in that regard – and muttering to himself.

‘’Did any of you find a Beyoncé mix tape?’’ he asks them, once he walks past them. ‘’I’m sure I left it somewhere, but I can’t remember.’’

Tony grins, remembering the mix tape he gave the Guardians. Stephen sends him a look, his lips tilted into a mischievous grin. ‘’Maybe someone took it,’’ Stephen offers, and feels Tony kick him. The bruise on his shin is well-worth the dubious look that Wong sends him at that.

Tony hums non-committedly, typing on his laptop and reading. Pepper sent him a few statements to make for the press; Stephen knows that Tony means to bring out the truth, but they do have to be careful about the whole Galactus-debacle. All details surrounding Tony’s apparent death are still vague, and they mean to keep it that way. There’s no use in creating an uproar over a danger that’s already passed. 

‘’What do we say about the man who cursed me?’’ Tony asks, looking still at his laptop. The light of the screen makes him look paler than he is. ‘’Do we mention he’s dead? People may feel more comforted at that.’’

‘’Mordo’s dead, but the threat isn’t gone,’’ Stephen warns.

Wong shrugs. ‘’Yeah, but mentioning that the man who used to curse people, incidentally, has himself been cursed and died – isn’t that the kind of thing that the press likes? Poetic justice? To be honest, Mordo drew the shorter straw on this one. Curse of Cyttorak, that’s not a peaceful way to go.’’

Tony clicks his tongue at that. ‘’I’ll run it by Pepper, but I think we should mention he’s gone. No use in worrying the mass and answering questions I don’t know the answer to.’’

Stephen has stilled, though. ‘’The Curse of Cyttorak?’’ he says slowly. ‘’Who’d you hear that from?’’

‘’Master Minoru checked all of the bodies,’’ Wong tells him. ‘’To see if we could find any clear traces. She told me it was that curse – I’m not familiar with it, but it’s an ancient one, apparently. There’s a few accounts on it, but none of them are pretty.’’

‘’I’ve heard that somewhere before,’’ Stephen says, and now the eyes of both Wong and Tony are on him. ‘’Where did I hear that before?’’

‘’I don’t know,’’ Tony says. ‘’Does it matter? It’s the first time I’m hearing of it.’’

‘’An ancient curse hardly anyone knows,’’ he returns, and rises. ‘’This entire thing – the Curse of Cyttorak, the Curse of Athazagora. Both curses we hardly know anything about, right? Uncommon and hard to battle. Whoever worked with Mordo, they knew all about old curses, that’s for certain. Curses that aren’t practiced anymore, not in the Sanctums. We only have two accounts on the Curse of Athazagora – the one Minoru found in her Sanctum and that wasn’t exactly the same, and the one we found recorded here. None of those mentioned how to cast it or how to remedy it. Do we know anything of that kind about the Curse of Cyttorak?’’

Wong frowns and crosses his arms in thought. ‘’You would have to ask Minoru. She’s the leading expert in curses.’’

‘’She doesn’t know, right?’’ Tony points out. ‘’She couldn’t help me with my curse – who’s to say she knows anything about the Curse of Kit-whatever?’’

Stephen paces a few steps. He _knows_ that he heard it somewhere – he is so certain. He wrecks his brain, trying to figure out when he did. It wasn’t here; it wasn’t in a book.

‘’Minoru is the one who identified the curse, so she must be more familiar with it than the Curse of Athazagora,’’ Wong says. ‘’It’s not quite as rare, maybe, though I had certainly never heard of it before she mentioned it. Maybe Master Wright knows something about it, too.’’

Stephen stops. ‘’Wright,’’ he says. ‘’ _That’s_ where I heard it before!’’

‘’You heard it from Alexander?’’ Tony asks, tilting his head in surprise as he regards Stephen. He has closed his laptop by now, and it rests on the desk. 

‘’Remember that Wright was recovering from an illness, when we first met with him? It wasn’t an illness that he was being secretive about – he’d been cursed. With the Curse of Cyttorak, to be precise. Minoru told me – it’s also why she was hesitant about Wright’s assistance, because she does not believe he’s fully healed. They don’t know who cursed him, but it has to be Mordo’s ally, doesn’t it? Perhaps a ploy to weaken a Master of a Sanctum who could work against them?’’

Tony narrows his eyes at that. ‘’But if he was so secretive about it, why does Minoru know?’’

‘’She was called to assist,’’ Stephen recollects, thinking back to the conversation of months ago, now. ‘’They couldn’t figure out what curse it was – but she could. She was the only one who knew what it was. She’s the only one in all the Sanctums who knows this curse, and she’s been so cautious about it all.’’

There’s a nagging feeling of wrongness to it all. ‘’She knows curses,’’ Wong reminds him. ‘’That’s why we went to her with Tony’s issue. She wouldn’t have helped all of us if she has something to do with it.’’

‘’I didn’t say that,’’ Stephen says immediately, but he looks towards his friend. ‘’Do you think –‘’

‘’She’s our friend,’’ Tony says resolutely. ‘’She’s the one who told us about Galactus, remember? Back at the Compound, you said that Mordo’s ally would’ve had something to do with bringing him here. She wants to protect Earth, not harm it!’’

‘’Though someone did enter the Sanctum,’’ Wong says quietly. ‘’We already had measures in place after the first attack – no one could enter that we didn’t know. They murdered Samuel Braxton when he wanted to talk to you. She wasn’t with us, when it happened. And no one from her Sanctum left, did they? She knows the curses.’’

‘’She’s not Mordo’s ally,’’ Stephen says, but he has to sit down again as the thoughts whirl through his head, only confusing him more. ‘’What reason would she even have to – to do this? What, gain control of the Sanctums?’’

‘’She did undermine Wright,’’ Wong says. ‘’Not often – but occasionally enough. His illness would’ve given her a reason to become Sorcerer Supreme instead of him, were something to happen to you, if that was the goal indeed. And it’s well-known that Mordo dislikes you; that he left. She could have easily promised him a position in the Sanctum and taken it for herself, thus betraying him.’’

Tony makes an odd noise in his throat. ‘’We’re talking about Minoru! She’s not Mordo’s ally, right? This isn’t – how would you explain Galactus?’’

‘’I can’t,’’ Wong says simply. ‘’But there’s too many random things that do not add up. We have to ask her, at least. You stayed at her Sanctum, and were beaten up by one of her Masters.’’

‘’That was an accident,’’ Tony protests. ‘’Besides, she got me out again!’’

‘’Maybe, but it didn’t happen when you were here. You were closer to her after – it could’ve been a way to figure out what Stephen knew, couldn’t it have been? To make you trust her? It wouldn’t be the first time a Master tries to take the position of Sorcerer Supreme by force. I have seen attempts before. Believe me, I don’t want to think Minoru did anything at all. But can we say, for certain, that it’s impossible that it’s her?’’

‘’But it’s Minoru,’’ Stephen says, and that’s all the arguments he can think of.

Wong rests a hand on his shoulder. ‘’It is,’’ he says gravelly. ‘’But that’s exactly what I thought when Mordo left. I’ve seen too many betrayals to be certain this isn’t one, Stephen. We have to know.’’

He does have a point. Mordo did betray them, and committed many crimes. Stephen can feel the doubt creeping in, despite the faith he had in Minoru only minutes ago. She can’t be Mordo’s ally, can she? Mortified, he looks towards Tony. His own doubt is mirrored in those dark eyes, and that only makes it worse.

‘’Let’s visit the Hong Kong Sanctum,’’ he says, and hopes it will all turn out to be a big misunderstanding. ‘’Let’s see what she has to say.’’

~*~

Tony doesn’t want to be here. They’ve created a portal to Minoru’s small room in the Hong Kong Sanctum, but there’s no one there to greet them, this time. He feels doubt and the burning belief that it can’t have been Minoru – it can’t have been. She’s helped them out all along, hasn’t she?

Hasn’t she?

He has known her for a few months now, though he hasn’t seen much of her lately. He has learnt that she can be harsh and cold, but she’s also so kind and giving that it’s difficult to imagine she would ever do something to harm the Sanctums. She is a Master, and to think that she’s been back-stabbing them all would have been unbelievable, only a few hours earlier.

On the other hand, he remembers Obadiah Stane, the man who stood by him for decades while plotting his downfall. He didn’t see it coming then; and he can’t, as Wong said, be certain that Minoru hasn’t been playing them all. Even the sliver of doubt has turned everything around, and has them wondering who is friend and who is foe.

‘’Where could she be?’’ Stephen asks aloud, and opens the door into the long hallways. There’s a few sorcerers passing by, hardly looking up at the three of them. Tony doesn’t recognize any of them, but he does know where he wants to start searching.

‘’Let’s find Master Zhao,’’ he says, and he doesn’t want to stop and wonder if Zhao is in on it, too. If he has something to do with all the horrors that have been happening to them.

Before Wong or Stephen can stop him, he starts striding resolutely towards the library. He still knows the lay-out from the time he spent here, and he can easily navigate this part of the Sanctum. The halls are taller than the New York Sanctum’s, and their hurried footsteps echo through the building. The few sorcerers they encounter hardly look up, and the ones that notice them don’t say a word. 

It’s hard to believe he spent so many days in the Sanctum that feels so unwelcoming to him, suddenly. The only good part was finding a friend in Zhao, and getting to know Minoru a bit better, towards the end. The Hong Kong Sanctum is like Minoru; cold and harsh, until you get to know it and be part of it. And maybe he feels so unwanted because he never truly did.

Tony leads them to the library, throwing open the wooden doors that make up the entrance. There’s a few Masters here, quietly reading their manuscripts. They frown at the trio in disapproval, but Tony’s too worked up to care about their dissatisfaction. ‘’Master Zhao!’’ he calls out.

One of the Masters, an elderly lady, shushes him. ‘’We just need to find Master Minoru or Master Zhao,’’ Stephen says to her, before Tony can respond. He curls a hand around Tony’s elbow, trying to keep him calm. Tony takes a deep breath.

The woman is still scowling at them, so presumably she doesn’t speak English. Or she does, and doesn’t care about any of their problems, in which case Tony doesn’t particularly like her. He lets Stephen’s hand on his arm slip away as he takes a step forward, walking further down the library paths. ‘’Master Zhao!’’ he says, again.

From the second path, the tall sorcerer steps in their way, tilting his head at them. He opens his mouth to say something, but the only thing that Tony even remotely understands is when he says ‘Minoru’. 

‘’He’s either saying that Minoru’s not here yet, or that she’s hiding in the cow-shed,’’ Stephen says, frowning hard at Zhao.

‘’Your Cantonese skills are atrocious,’’ Tony informs him. ‘’Let’s go with the first. Does he know where she is?’’

Zhao doesn’t seem to be interested in answering their questions, though. He gestures at them to follow, and Wong is the first to do so. They all move past the bookshelves, until they come to a small room at the back of the library. Tony hasn’t been here before, but it seems cosier than most other places in the Sanctum. Zhao rummages around a few desks, and then hands Stephen a small amulet. It’s golden, with a ruby planted in the middle of it.

‘’What’s that?’’ Tony asks, craning his neck to get a look at it. ‘’Why is he giving it to us?’’

Zhao sighs, and raps his knuckles on the amulet. ‘’Minoru,’’ he says, pronouncing it as clearly as he can.

Stephen brings the amulet closer to get a look at it. ‘’I think he means this belongs to Minoru,’’ he says, and he waves his hand above it. The amulet suddenly radiates a deep crimson colour, faintly swirling around it. ‘’These are her traces. She spelled it, once.’’

‘’Maybe he wants us to find her,’’ Tony realizes. ‘’The sensors – we can make a sensor. We still have one lying around in the Sanctum for Mordo’s magic. Altering it to sense Minoru won’t take us long, and it could help us find her.’’

‘’Or we can just go to the London Sanctum,’’ Wong suggests. ‘’She went to meet with Wright, and I haven’t seen her after. Perhaps he knows where she is.’’

‘’I don’t want to believe that she’s Mordo’s ally, but if she is – Wright won’t know,’’ Stephen says. ‘’Changing the sensor will take mere minutes. We’ll go to the London Sanctum after we’ve put it together and see if we can find her there, and then we’ll return here to search.’’

Zhao makes a sharp noise when the three of them nod at each other. ‘’I think he wants to come,’’ Tony says. Zhao folds his arms determinedly. 

‘’Let him,’’ Wong decides. ‘’We might need the help.’’

‘’How do we know he’s not helping out Minoru?’’ Stephen asks.

‘’He did just give us the amulet,’’ Tony points out. ‘’Let’s not reprove _all_ of our friends of betraying everything they stand for, Stephen. Besides, we can ask Alexander to join the search, too, and he’ll help. We’re not accusing him too, are we?’’

His tone is bitter and sharp, and he feels slightly worse for it when Stephen’s expression turns plainly hurt before the mask of indifference shields his emotions again. Of course he knows that Stephen doesn’t like this any more than he does; he knows Minoru better than Tony, and the betrayal will be harder for him.

‘’Let’s just go,’’ Stephen says, and creates a portal behind him. Wong shrugs at Tony and follows his friend. Zhao goes in, too, and Tony is last. The orange sparks disappear behind him as soon as he steps back in front of the New York Sanctum. 

Stephen is already moving, moving up the stairs into the Sanctum and shutting the door soundly behind him. Wong pushes him forward quietly, and Tony almost stumbles onto the steps. He looks back towards Wong. ‘’Apologize to him,’’ the man says. ‘’Zhao and I will be waiting here.’’

Tony sighs but nods, climbing up the stairs and following Stephen. The sorcerer is upstairs, rummaging around the cabinets they were keeping the sensors in. He fishes out the device, ignoring Tony as he walks past him. Tony watches him quietly as he puts it down on the desk, none too gently, and waves his hand around it a few times. The green light, indicating the sensor is working, goes out.

‘’I’m sorry,’’ he offers. ‘’I’m just – I don’t want to believe this.’’

Stephen’s back slumps, and the sorcerer turns to face him. ‘’Neither do I,’’ he says. ‘’We have to be wary, Tony. I’m the Sorcerer Supreme – in the end, I have to make sure all Sanctums are protected. Even from themselves. And if I’ve messed this up, then what good am I?’’

‘’Hey, no one could’ve seen this coming,’’ Tony protests, and moves closer to put a hand on Stephen’s jaw. ‘’If Minoru’s done this, she must’ve been planning for years. This isn’t your fault, and no one will ever convince me it is.’’

Stephen leans down to kiss him. It’s short but insistent, and Tony closes his eyes for a moment. When he opens them again, Stephen’s pale eyes are staring at him intently, as if Tony’s a riddle he can’t quite solve. Tony just twitches his lips, and strokes Stephen’s jaw softly before letting go of the man.

‘’I’m glad you’re here,’’ Stephen whispers.

Tony doesn’t have to guess what he’s talking about. He still remembers the darkness of space well enough, and he knows Stephen does, too. Tony came back, but the fear his loss created in Stephen’s heart is not so easily forgotten.

‘’Let’s fix the sensor,’’ he says quietly. ‘’It’s only a few minutes work, right? Do I need to do anything?’’

Stephen straightens himself, and with one last lingering look, he turns to the sensor instead. ‘’No,’’ he says, and takes the amulet. ‘’I removed Mordo’s magic from it; I only need to make it sensitive to Minoru’s traces, now – it’s just – look, here we are.’’

The soft redness reappears, glowing around the amulet. Stephen moves his hand, muttering a spell under his breath, and the glow moves from the amulet towards the device. Tony watches eagerly as Stephen closes his eyes and keeps the glow steady for a few minutes. He’s watched him do it before, of course, but seeing Stephen perform magic is simply beautiful. He’s such a gifted sorcerer, and Tony can see the elegance in his movements despite not knowing all that much about the Mystic Arts. Stephen’s tall fingers crook in a direction, and the glow dances with that single movement, masterfully directed towards where it needs to be.

He is done within a few minutes, finishing up with a few final swirls. Stephen puts down the amulet again and admires his own handiwork, nodding as he’s satisfied with it. He takes the sensor and clips it to his belt. The Cloak moves to paw at it softly before deciding it’s no threat. 

Tony smiles at the sight of it. ‘’You look like an idiot,’’ he sighs fondly. ‘’It’s perfect.’’

Stephen raises his eyebrows at that. ‘’Coming from the guy who thinks a gold-red metal suit is inconspicuous,’’ he retorts.

‘’It’s not inconspicuous, it’s _fashion_. Also, it’s not metal, it’s nano-technology. Improving technology all over the world while looking good is a super-heroic act all by itself.’’

The eye-roll can be expected, but Tony relishes in the tender kiss that Stephen presses to his forehead at that. ‘’We should go,’’ he murmurs. ‘’Wong and Zhao are waiting.’’

Tony shrugs. ‘’They can wait a little longer, can’t they?’’

‘’No, they can’t,’’ Stephen replies, but he sounds amused. ‘’C’mon, Tony. We have to find Minoru, and we’re going to start at the London Sanctum. The sooner this whole thing is over, the gladder I’ll be.’’

‘’Well, that’s true,’’ he admits, and follows Stephen out of the Sanctum again. One way or another, he wants to find out if Minoru has a connection to this all. The sun is shining out, as they leave the Sanctum again minutes after coming in; the slightly uncomfortable wind combined with the pale light makes him realize how close they are to spring. In only a few weeks, the trees will be green again.

Wong sends a questioning glance towards Tony when they trod down the steps, and he gives a sharp nod. It’s enough communication for the both of them, and a welcome reminder that there’s more people in Stephen’s corner than just Tony.

‘’It’s ready?’’ Wong asks, aiming the question at Stephen now.

‘’We’ll find Minoru quickly enough if she’s hiding,’’ he answers, and creates a portal again wordlessly. Tony steps through it after Wong. It doesn’t even faze him to travel half the world within seconds. It’s going to be really depressing whenever he has to travel by plane again. Who needs planes when you have partners who can get you anywhere, anytime? Maybe he can convince Stephen to create portals for him all the time.

Tony can be very persuasive, after all.

The thought disappears as he eyes the Sanctum. He’s never actually visited the London Sanctum before; the hallway looks more like New York’s than Hong Kong’s, maybe a bit smaller. There’s lighter furniture, and he can hear some faint noise from the street outside. It’s already late in the night at the Sanctum, and the majority of London is going to sleep. There are always people outside, however, and he can hear the cars honking still.

A middle-aged, red-haired sorcerer passes them by, startling as he sees them. ‘’Can you lead us to Master Wright?’’ Stephen asks politely. ‘’It’s urgent.’’

The sorcerer frowns. ‘’Master Strange – no, I’m sorry. I don’t think Master Wright is in the Sanctum right now. He had a meeting with Master Minoru, and I haven’t seen him since. I presume they left.’’

Tony frowns, and his eyes meet Stephen, who is doing the same thing. ‘’Thank you,’’ Stephen says, but he starts walking across the Sanctum. Tony quickly follows, trying to keep up with his quick stride.

‘’Master Strange! Master Strange! I don’t think you’re supposed to –‘’ 

‘’I’ll decide that for myself, thank you,’’ Stephen answers easily, and that shuts up the London sorcerer pretty quickly. Tony grins at the quick response, and takes the turn when Stephen does.

Stephen throws open a door. It’s obviously Wright’s private room, but there are no Masters to detect here. The sensor suddenly starts beeping, though, and Tony frowns as he sees Stephen take it and stare at it.

‘’She must be here, then,’’ Wong says, who’s caught up to them as well. ‘’But why doesn’t anyone know where she or Wright is?’’

Tony bites his lower lip, one unreasonable explanation after another one flying through his mind. He feels increasingly uneasy, though. ‘’I’m not sure, but I think we need to hurry,’’ he says. ‘’Maybe get some of the other Masters to join.’’

If Minoru is who they think she is – Alexander is in serious danger.


	43. Chapter 43

It’s only minutes before a stronger force stands before them. Stephen worries, as he stares at the steadily beeping sensor; something is going on, and he doesn’t feel good about it. Master Brown and Master Chen have joined them, leaving only Master Moretti behind to take care of his Sanctum. 

Wanda also stands before him, ready to follow. Stephen wasn’t sure whether he should ask for her to come, but when he’d made the decision and enquired whether she’d want to help out, she didn’t hesitate for a moment. It makes him grateful for her steady presence; she might make a fine addition to his Sanctum, if she wanted to. But that’s a question for another day.

It’s a small but reliable team, with Zhao, Wong and Tony there as well. Tony is wearing his hoodie now, ready to suit up at any moment. They all look determined to find out what’s going on. Some of the London sorcerers have stopped to watch them, but in true English fashion, all of them must have decided they’d rather not know and continued on. After all, Stephen is the Sorcerer Supreme, and they must trust in him to do the right thing. Especially if their own Master isn’t there to contradict him; and no one knows where Wright is, right now. So they walk on, watching the small group but not interfering, and continue with whatever they were doing before.

‘’We should split up,’’ Master Chen suggests. ‘’We have a better chance of finding Master Minoru if we do.’’

‘’Or Alexander,’’ Tony mutters.

Wanda folds her arms. ‘’What do we do if we find her?’’ she asks.

‘’We’ll go with multiple people so we can back-track if anything happens,’’ Stephen decides. He’d rather not split up, but they have to find Minoru somehow. The Sanctum isn’t exactly small, and Master Minoru is resourceful. ‘’Wanda and Master Zhao, you come with me. Wong and Tony, you search the right wing, and Master Brown and Master Chen can try to see if there’s anything in the left wing. Get help once you find something. Go.’’

All of them start moving in the right directions at once, but Stephen stops when Tony pulls his sleeve. ‘’Be careful, alright?’’ Tony says in a hushed whisper. ‘’Don’t go playing the hero.’’

‘’You’re one to speak,’’ Stephen tells him, and quickly pulls Tony flush against him for a kiss. It’s only a second, because that’s all the time they have. ‘’I promise. Stay with Wong.’’

Tony sends him one last glance before he follows after Wong, and Stephen moves in the other direction. He’d prefer to have Tony with him, but Wanda is more or less his student and he can’t drop her in the lap of someone who doesn’t know her style of magic as well. Neither does he want to lose sight of Zhao, whose loyalty has not been established, in his eyes. 

He trusts Wong to keep an eye on Tony, and the other way around. Tony may not be a sorcerer, but he has his suit, and has a way of getting out of trouble. He has to trust in them, and he does.

As he moves through the Sanctum, his hands raised with a locating spell, he tries to focus only on finding Minoru.

~*~

Tony doesn’t want to interrupt Wong’s spell, or whatever he is doing while he’s muttering. Tony just keeps his eye out for Minoru or Alexander, but the only people they pass are from the Sanctum. They stare at him, but they don’t interfere. There’s not many sorcerers passing them by, anyway; it’s night in London, now, and most people have gone off to bed already.

The lamps give off a yellowish light, creating an almost sickly atmosphere in the London Sanctum. Tony looks through the rooms they pass through, but most are empty and dark, not a sign of life to discover. The farther away they get from the centre, the quieter the hallways become. Tony is tip-toeing through the building, Wong striding behind him with certain steps. 

Wong keeps holding his hands high, faintly glowing with some kind of spell. ‘’Stop here,’’ he whispers, and Tony immediately halts. 

‘’What is it?’’ he asks, making sure to keep his voice down. ‘’Is there someone here?’’

‘’Some _thing_ is,’’ Wong says, and crouches, putting his hand to the cold stone floor. Tony watches him inspect it for a little while. He carefully taps the floor; it doesn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary.

‘’We’re on the ground floor. There’s not anything under there, right?’’

‘’It’s hard to notice, but I think there’s a basement here,’’ Wong responds, and makes a complex movement with his hands. Faint white light shoots out of the floor, and Tony takes a step back in surprise as Wong nods to himself. ‘’There’s something under here. We need to find a way to get below there.’’

‘’Can’t you create a portal?’’ Tony asks him sceptically.

The man looks up at him. ‘’If it is what I think it is, no, portals aren't an option. Hidden rooms in the Sanctums have been spelled so that no one can create a portal to it – the same spells that Stephen used in order to put a lockdown on the New York Sanctum. I can only create a portal to get _out_ of them, but we cannot enter that way. It is for safety reasons, and if we want to find the secret chambers, we will need to find the entrance by ourselves. It can’t be far away – let’s start searching.’’

Tony doesn’t argue with that, and they both start searching for doors and any other sort of opening. There’s three rooms nearby; two working rooms and one bathroom. Wong tries spells and Tony tries to find ordinary entries by knocking on walls and looking for clandestine handles. He’s not sure how relevant the basement is, but Wong seems to suspect something, so Tony helps. In the meantime, he wonders how Stephen is doing. If he’s just as uncomfortable as Tony, in here.

He doesn’t say anything as he continues searching. They’ve searched the two rooms and are working on the bathroom now. Wong aggressively mutters to himself, while Tony quietly checks the toilet cubicles. They remind him of high school.

Just as he’s ready to give up, a tile in the second cubicle gives. Tony narrows his eyes and sits back. ‘’Wong?’’ he calls out, and takes out the tile. There’s a gaping hole of dark underneath it, and that can’t be right. ‘’I’ve got something here.’’

Wong doesn’t waste any time; he opens the cubicle and watches. ‘’Stand back,’’ he warns, and Tony rises from the floor to stand behind him. Wong snaps his fingers, and the tiles start reforming until the toilet disappears. The entire bathroom floor remakes itself into a door, and Tony stares for a few seconds at it.

‘’Talk about secret entrances,’’ he says. ‘’Chamber of Secrets, much? Why are all these secret entrances always in the bathroom?’’

Wong blinks at him. ‘’I have no idea what you’re talking about,’’ he says calmly. ‘’Come. We need to see if anyone’s here.’’

With that, he opens the door. A stair is on the other side, and he casually walks down it. Tony stares down him, sighs, and then curses for good measure, as he follows eventually. ‘’Can name all of Beyoncé’s albums by heart, but doesn’t know _Harry Potter_ ,’’ he mutters to himself. ‘’What am I getting myself into?’’

‘’Hurry up, Tony!’’ Wong calls from below. His voice echoes, and Tony can hardly see a foot in front of him. Carefully, he grabs the railing and starts making his way to where Wong is. He almost bumps into the sorcerer as the stairs end.

‘’Hey, is there a light switch here?’’ Tony mutters to him. ‘’Shouldn’t we get Stephen?’’

‘’This may be nothing,’’ Wong says. 

‘’Nothing? We have a hidden chamber!’’

‘’Without anything else, so far. The Sanctums are renowned for hidden chambers, Tony. After centuries of Sorcerers Supremes and wars for the control of different Sanctums, we know how to hide things. I can name five hidden rooms in the New York Sanctum alone.’’

Tony narrows his eyes, but Wong creates a ball of light in his hand that sheds more light in the room, and starts walking again. It seems like some kind of labyrinth; there’s two doors on either side of the hallway. Wong seems to have randomly picked one, and Tony has no choice but to follow. ‘’Are you sure?’’ he asks.

Wong turns to him. ‘’If we find something or someone, we will find Stephen. If something does happen, you should run.’’

‘’And leave you?’’ Tony asks him, affronted. ‘’I’m not sure you know me at all.’’

A faint grin touches Wong’s lips. ‘’I think I know you better than you believe me to,’’ he says. ‘’You’re not a sorcerer – by all rights, you shouldn’t even be here. You should listen to me.’’

‘’We brought Wanda,’’ Tony protests.

‘’Miss Maximoff is being trained by Stephen, and – we don’t have time for discussions. If something were to happen, we need to fight magic with magic, Tony. Come on, we need to keep on searching.’’

‘’How do you know where we’re going?’’ he asks.

Wong shrugs. ‘’As I said, I know five of these chambers in the New York Sanctum. There’s a certain pattern to be found, after a while. The Sanctums were all built by the same person, did you know? The first Sorcerer Supreme, before even the Ancient One. Many things have changed in the Sanctums, but secrets – secrets can’t change, because they are unknown. So if you know one of these rooms, you know all of them.’’

‘’Stephen knows about these secret rooms?’’ Tony asks. ‘’And Minoru and Alexander, too?’’

‘’Undoubtedly,’’ Wong answers, steadily walking. ‘’I was the one who showed them to Stephen. Come, the central room should be towards the east. If there’s nothing there, we’ll head back.’’

Tony nods. The tall hallways are dark and quiet – too quiet for him to imagine there’s anyone there. He’s certain they’ll just find more dust and solitude, and follows Wong. His footsteps leave an echo as they move further and further away from the entrance.

~*~

The sensor keeps beeping continuously. Stephen worries that it may have broken down – this would mean that Minoru keeps on using magic, and that seems unlikely. Still, as long as it keeps giving off a signal, he trusts in the small device. It has not failed them before, after all.

His left hand he keeps held up, the spell he uses softly shining through his skin. Wanda stays beside him, but Zhao seems more eager and keeps going ahead, using a spell of his own. 

They open the doors when it seems like someone’s in there, but most of the sorcerers shoo them out again, annoyed at the interruption. Stephen bypasses the bedrooms – if they really need to search them, he’ll get back later, but he doubts anyone would be hiding in there anyhow. Slowly but steadily, they work through the Sanctum. 

‘’Strange,’’ Zhao calls out, garbling his name into something near-incomprehensible, but he gestures at Stephen in urgency, pointing at another room on their left. It’s near the end of a hallway, full of abandoned classrooms. No one is there at this time of the day, and it doesn’t look like many people usually go here. Not a surprise, as most Sanctums have fewer students than they used to in the olden days – still, Zhao’s own spell seemingly tells him of something suspicious.

Stephen quickens his pace until he reaches Zhao. ‘’What’s it?’’ he asks, and points his own locating spell at the wall. There’s a signal of a human being, and he frowns. Maybe someone is studying late?

He pushes again the open door, and it falls open while creaking. His heart is beating in consternation, but the room turns out to be completely empty. The window has a nice view on the inside gardens, and there’s an old blackboard and a few dusty chairs. Nothing spectacular.

‘’No one’s here,’’ Wanda says, peeking inside and twitching her nose at that. ‘’But the spell –‘’

‘’Odd,’’ Stephen says, and turns. Now his spell says that someone’s on the other side, and it can’t be Zhao, who has just joined them. The old sorcerer mutters something under his breath, and then knocks on the wall.

Stephen wants to dismiss the idea, but then stops. They’ve encountered worse things, the past half year. His spell must mean something, even if it’s that horrendous. His sensor is still beeping, and he turns it off.

‘’There can’t be someone in there, right?’’ Wanda asks, eyes widening in dismay. 

Stephen straightens. ‘’I’m going to smash it,’’ he says. ‘’Wanda, I want you to levitate the pieces – and if there’s someone in there, make sure they don’t fall. On the count of three.’’

He counts to three, and then smashes a ball of energy in the wall. It’s designed to destroy the outer piece of the wall without damaging what’s inside – a handy spell for breaking open whatever he needs. Wanda rises her hands, the pieces of the wall floating in the air.

A person falls to the floor, coughing and wheezing. Her hands are bound together, still glowing from the lighting spell she’s using, and her dark hair is a mess. Her normally stoic face is streaked with dirt, and her eyes are wide and dark, as if she’s seen a bit too much for the past few hours.

Stephen falls to his knees, crouching beside her as he hurries to untie her wrists. ‘’Minoru?’’ he says in disbelief, his brain going into overdrive.

She coughs up some dirt, taking a deep breath, and lets go of her spell as her hands go back to normal. Zhao helps her sit up straight as she regains her breath. ‘’You’re here,’’ she mutters. Zhao whispers something back, hugging her tightly, his brow creased in concern as he takes in her state.

‘’What happened?’’ Stephen asks. ‘’Why were you in the wall?’’

Minoru shudders, leaning against the broken wall. ‘’How did you figure out I’d be here?’’ she asks instead, her hand still on her chest. She needs a check-up, and badly; the doctor in Stephen feels uncomfortable, hearing her breathe like that. ‘’Was it my spell?’’

‘’We didn’t know,’’ he answers. ‘’We were looking for you – what the hell is going on, Minoru? Who put you there?’’

She stares at him for a moment. ‘’You don’t know yet?’’ she says, surprised. ‘’Strange, why did you come here in the first place? Be honest with me, now.’’

He feels awkward confessing it. ‘’We thought you may be Mordo’s ally,’’ he admits. ‘’Since you’re in a wall, I’m inclined to think otherwise, but – what don’t we know?’’

‘’Help me up,’’ Minoru says determinedly, but she’s still pale and trembling. Stephen rises himself in order to help her up. She relies on him and Zhao, but manages to stand unassisted within a few seconds. There’s dust floating in the air because of the broken wall, and Minoru lets out another cough before standing still. 

‘’Minoru,’’ Stephen presses.

She lets out a huff of bitter laughter, looking up to the ceiling. ‘’You’ve got it all wrong,’’ she says. ‘’We need to leave, right now, and gather the Sanctums. We need to go to war, and we need to do it _now_ , before my protection spells wear off and he’ll be back to kill me. It’s not me who is Mordo’s ally, Master Strange, though you’re awfully close to the truth. It’s Wright who has played us all.’’

‘’Wright?’’ Stephen repeats. ‘’Wright is Mordo’s ally? But how?’’

‘’We don’t have time!’’ she says heatedly. ‘’You need to gather your Masters and all your sorcerers – he’s not going to want to wait, and he’ll come in to kill all of us. Don’t you _understand_? All of it, it’s been a ploy, and a masterful one at that. We need to prepare and we need to stop him!’’

‘’But the Masters are already here,’’ Wanda says, looking at Stephen.

Minoru freezes. ‘’You’ve brought your Masters here?’’

‘’All of them but Moretti,’’ Stephen says, his brain racing. None of his Masters know what to expect – they’d all gone with their assumption that it was Minoru who’d betrayed them, despite the misgivings. ‘’And Tony is here, as well. Why – is Wright still here?’’

‘’He was waiting for my protection spell to wear off so he could kill me. He must be hiding somewhere in the Sanctum waiting for me to give up. I’m sure he’s still here somewhere.’’

Mordo’s ally is Wright, and he’s hiding somewhere in the Sanctum, ready for murder. Stephen feels his inside freeze.

~*~

Tony starts, when they reach the central point. He can sense Wong’s surprise next to him, too, as they get to the room – it’s wider than the others, and something’s dripping quietly onto the stone, its echo almost louder than the actual sound.

Alexander Wright is sitting in the middle of the room, his eyes flying open when they open the door.

‘’Alexander?’’ Tony says, and regards the man before him warily. Alexander seems pale and drawn, a sheen of sweat glistening on his face. He doesn’t look very healthy, and Tony feels his concern grow. ‘’Hey, you alright?’’

‘’What are you doing here?’’ Alexander asks, easily rising.

‘’Searching for you,’’ Wong says easily. He takes Tony’s arm, lightly resting against it but stopping him from going forward.

Alexander tilts his head, regarding him with something that is more like amusement than anything else. Tony wonders at it, but stays silent. Something gnaws at him – his instincts scream at him to do something, but he is nailed to the floor with questions. 

‘’Well, you found me,’’ Alexander says easily. ‘’What for?’’

Wong takes a step forward, but gestures at Tony to stay behind. ‘’To see if you know where Master Minoru is.’’

‘’Seems like an awful lot of trouble to find her. Is she missing? She came to inform me about your discussion, and everything you’ve figured out so far. Nice deductions – the Sorcerer Supreme has a sharp mind to go along with his Mystic Arts, isn’t it?’’

Wong narrows his eyes. ‘’He does.’’

‘’Well,’’ Alexander says, and waves around his hand. The door behind them falls shut, and Tony stiffens. This isn’t good, by any means. Alexander just gives them an insincere smirk that’s gone within a second again. 

‘’What are you doing?’’ Tony demands, glaring at it and back to Alexander.

The sorcerer shrugs. ‘’Since Strange is so clever, I’m just going to assume my time is up. So nice of him to send the two of you to me – what do you think he’s going to do, Wong? If I curse your friend there – since the first curse didn’t seem to stick, anyway – if I curse him, do you think Strange is going to be more concerned with saving him or with capturing me? I think he’ll go with the first – you remember how torn he was the first time we all thought Stark was dead, right? Death is something that doesn’t seem to stick, either.’’

‘’You’re Mordo’s ally,’’ Tony says quietly, and rage bubbles in him as he steps forward.

‘’Ally?’’ Wright repeats, shaking his head. ‘’I prefer puppet master. Karl Mordo – such a joke. I made him dance and made him think it was his own idea. Curse the evil celebrities who’ve done such horrible things – as if I’d care about whatever you did. Infiltrate the New York Sanctum so they’ll lose trust in Strange and will prefer a stronger leader – I know sorcerers are idiots, I just didn’t think it’d be _this bad_. One thing you do manage is getting there too early, though. Mordo and his band trying to steal one of the ships at the Avengers Compound to stop Galactus was the first example – did he really think I’d let him go? And now the two of you, happening upon me before I managed to off Minoru. So many efforts with no gain. Well, you’ll soon have another thing in common – all of you will be quite dead.’’

Wong doesn’t respond but his hands are alight with energy, the brightness mirrored in his eyes. He throws it at Wright as if a whip, but Wright slashes it down with a brute, midnight blue spell of his own. Wong looks up in dismay as his own spell falls apart.

‘’You’re not human,’’ he says calmly, as if they haven’t encountered whatever this is. ‘’Tony, go.’’

‘’Oh, I don’t think so,’’ Wright says, and before Tony can even move, he’s extended his hand. Tony falls to the ground as an invisible pressure finds him, keeping him there no matter how much he struggles. ‘’That one owes me a curse. I think I have just the one, too.’’

The feeling of pain hits before the words even truly register. The pressure moves away but still he can’t get up, it’s like his veins are on fire; his whole body shakes with an unspeakable agony. He opens his mouth in a wordless yell, writhing on the floor as the curse wrecks through his body.

With an unspeakable effort, he shuffles himself against the cold stone wall, trying to lean on it. He needs to get away – he needs to find Stephen and get him, before it’s too late. Before anything irreversible has happened to either him or Wong.

He can’t get up – he can only suffer through the agony as Wong starts a hopeless fight.

~*~

‘’Tony!’’ he calls out, not caring how many people he wakes as he runs through the halls. ‘’Tony! Wong! Where are you?’’

Wanda is echoing him, but Zhao is both trying to support Minoru, who won’t exactly let him, and searching with another spell. They’ve run back all the way, nearly in the central hall, when Master Brown walks into them, her eyes frantic.

‘’Master Strange,’’ she says, sounding out of breath. ‘’We were looking for you – is that Master Minoru?’’

‘’Good evening,’’ Minoru says dryly.

Master Chen joins her, startling upon the sight of them, but recovering quickly. ‘’Masters – there’s a secret entrance in the bathrooms, back there. We think Tony and Wong went in; we can’t find them anywhere else.’’

Stephen has to keep his head cool, but it’s hard to think logically when the two most important people in your life suddenly disappear into a secret entry when there’s a murderer on the loose who won’t stop at anything. ‘’Where?’’ he asks.

‘’We have to think this through,’’ Minoru hisses at him, taking him by his sleeve. The Cloak rears at it, flying up in dissatisfaction. Minoru draws back, but her eyes are frantic as she lets go of him. ‘’Strange, we can’t simply barge in there – Wright’s dangerous. He’s more powerful than any sorcerer I’ve ever seen, and I can’t explain it.’’

A simple fact strikes Stephen at that moment. He thinks back to the times he’d seen Wright’s magic at work – which is simple, because he hasn’t. Not really. The only time he has seen Wright cast a spell was when he had to remember Tony – but he remembers Tony’s comment on it not hurting so badly, anymore. What if that’s a spell that has never been cast, because Wright didn’t need it to remember Tony? What if the chaotic, oddly structured magic that prevented them from entering the safe room at the Avengers Compound wasn’t simply because it wasn’t from the Sanctum? There was definitely something un-humanlike about it.

Maybe he’s never seen Wright create a portal or cast a spell because Wright knew it would give him away. Because Wright is not actually Wright at all.

He’s not even human.

‘’We can’t wait any longer,’’ he says sharply. ‘’I don’t think Wright is who he says he is, beyond the obvious. If Tony and Wong have found him, he’s not going to let them go. We need to find them _now_. Masters, lead on. We’re going to have to do this with the six of us, and pray that it’s enough.’’

It’s Wanda who moves first, resolve written all across her face. ‘’Let’s finish this,’’ she says, her voice dangerously low. She knows danger; she’s an Avenger, more than a sorceress, and it shows in her stance. Master Chen nods, hardened, and starts running.

All of them follow, but Stephen can’t focus on the hallways. His concern is for the closest friend he’s ever had and for the man he loves above all else. If something happens to them, he’ll never forgive himself for leading them into such peril. He runs, his feet barely touching the ground as they move across the Sanctum.

He can only hope they’ll arrive in time.

~*~

Deep below them, in a room in the middle of a maze, two sorcerers fight. Wong lets out a sharp cry and sags to one knee. 

‘’What will I do with you?’’ Wright says, his lips twitching. ‘’Well, Master Wong, would you rather see your friend die first or would you like to have the honours? Maybe Stark wants some relief, now. I’ve heard the Curse of Cyttorak is rather unpleasant, you know. Mordo refused to scream, but his followers did. They deserved the prolonged death – how long do you give Stark? Of course, this body held out for a few long hours. Alexander Wright was so annoying – needed to be really weakened before I could take over his body. But well, it’s the easiest way to infiltrate a Sanctum, of course. Rarely anyone questions a Master. You would know.’’

Wong just grunts. ‘’You talk too much,’’ he says, trying to stand again.

Wright smiles an unpleasant grin, baring his teeth like a wolf. ‘’Perhaps, but then again, I had to be nice to all of you for so long, watching you chase your own tail. How many times have I wanted to laugh in your face? I’m just taking my moment, Master Wong. It shouldn’t be long before Strange finds out you’re gone, after all, assuming he’s as clever as you seem to think he is. I may not have succeeded in controlling Galactus, but I’ll certainly control the Sanctums after I’m done, and that’s enough of a spit on the legacy of the Ancient One to satisfy me.’’

He just aims a bright spell at Wong.

~*~

At the start of the dark stairs, something reaches Stephen’s ears.

‘’Someone’s screaming,’’ Chen says worriedly, voicing what all of them were thinking.

‘’Hurry,’’ Stephen insists, and flies down the stairs, his heart pounding in unceasing concern.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly though, I doubt any of you are surprised given how long most of you have been suspicious of Wright haha


	44. Chapter 44

‘’What way?’’ Stephen demands, torn between the two doors. They’ve come down to a maze, and Stephen knows enough that they’ll be searching for hours if they don’t go the right way. They don’t have hours, and he wishes Wong was here now. There are secret rooms in the New York Sanctum, but Stephen barely uses them and he’s not studied them often; Wong revels in knowing their riddles and has had time to study them for many years.

They’ve never been a major concern for Stephen, and he laments not studying them earlier now. He turns to Minoru, who looks equally uncertain.

‘’We need to find the central room,’’ she says. ‘’These are all hallways – they should be empty, and they’re not built for doing anything, just for hiding.’’

‘’Look,’’ Wanda says, and she gestures to Zhao. The elder Master is frowning, but quietly walking towards one door. He seems to sense it, but he’s not actually using a spell.

‘’He finds what you need,’’ Minoru says, looking towards her faithful librarian. ‘’Zhao can find us what we need – the room in which we need to be.’’

‘’I’ll take it,’’ Master Brown says wryly. Zhao turns around, gesturing at them all to come, and goes off like a dog following a bone. It only takes him a few moments to guess the doors, and they all follow him. There’s not much of a choice, but Stephen still feels anxious every moment they have to wait.

There’s no way to know what they’ll find, but they have been walking for at least ten minutes and not encountered anyone, yet. They haven’t heard another scream, after the first one, and that’s not necessarily a good thing. Stephen would rather hear the sounds of a fight, perhaps – at least it would be a sign of life. The nothingness makes him nervous, and he can barely keep up with Zhao’s ruthless pace.

He at once notices it when they reach the room; the door is different from the others, and he does not hesitate to move. He bursts in first, followed by Zhao and Minoru, but can’t immediately comprehend what he is seeing. Three men are visible; Tony is in one corner, trembling with his eyes closed, and Stephen feels a surge of worry. Wong is seated near the centre of the room, his teeth bared in visible pain. There seems to be a curse around him; he’s not moving or screaming, but he can’t get out of it, either. 

In the exact centre, the unconscious body of Alexander Wright lies. But that’s not everyone in the room.

A man with a skin that is skeletal white, streaked with blood-red veins, steps forward. His eyes are equally red and piercing, and he’s taller and broader than the usual human. The red streaks, almost making his skin look like porcelain, glow slightly in the darkness of the chamber. He has no hair, and his clothes are dark and unobtrusive. He smiles as he sees them, all teeth and no joy.

‘’Well, then,’’ the being says. ‘’Here we are, at the end of all things.’’

‘’What did you do?’’ Stephen demands. ‘’Who are you? Answer me, demon!’’

The man that’s not a man laughs. ‘’Demon – it’s been a while, since people called me that. Though I have to say that you’re correct, of course. Well, Master Strange, here’s the true face of the London Master, and his name is not Wright but Chthon. Does that ring a bell?’’

It doesn’t, in fact, ring a bell for Stephen. He just frowns and looks towards Minoru, but she seems equally perplexed. ‘’Who?’’ she asks.

Chthon’s body rumples in dissatisfaction. ‘’Chthon! The Sleeper! Demon of the Darkhold! He Who Holds the Darkness! God of Chaos!’’

‘’I thought Loki was the God of Chaos,’’ Brown states.

‘’No, he is the God of Mischief,’’ Wanda corrects her.

‘’Let’s discuss that later,’’ Stephen intervenes. He doesn’t enjoy the fact that the resentful demon still has control over Wong and Tony; he needs to get them to safety before Chthon manages to do anything to them. Tony is still trembling heavily, his skin glistening; Stephen can’t hear him, but it seems that he’s muttering to himself. There’s definitely something wrong, and he can’t watch him suffer so.

Chthon tilts his head, regarding Stephen almost predatorily. ‘’Galactus didn’t finish off Earth, as he ought to have,’’ he says, ‘’but I’ll be glad to do away with just the Sanctums. Your boyfriend won’t last much longer, I imagine – the Curse of Cyttorak isn’t kind on the body. Everyone gives in, eventually, and it’s not a happy ending, either. Your faithful friend, of course, may encounter another end. And you, Strange, will live long enough to see the end of both of them. And Minoru, of course – you couldn’t have let me kill you a bit earlier, could you?’’

‘’Sorry to interfere with your plans,’’ she says, and exchanges a meaningful glance with Stephen. He understands her intention immediately; they are not here to negotiate with the demon. They are here to save Tony and Wong, and to stop Chthon from whatever he wants to achieve – apparently, the downfall of the Sanctums.

Stephen Strange is the Sorcerer Supreme, Master of the New York Sanctum, and he will not waver. He has to overcome his gnawing concern for those he cares about and he needs to start getting them to safety instead – and they will not be safe until Chthon has been defeated, that much is clear.

He gives her a single nod, and together, they strike first.

Chthon does not appear surprised; he jumps to the side, and with that, the battle has started. Wanda joins, her red spells strong and vibrant as she throws them towards Chthon. Chen joins, as well, but Master Brown runs towards Tony and Wong.

She’s just reached Wong when Chthon throws a spell towards her and a loud bang scares them off. Brown ducks to avoid being hit, but Stephen can see what she’s trying to do; he quickly summons a shield over her so she can quietly work to free him. Minoru instead presses herself against Stephen, shielding them as well while Stephen is busy with Brown’s protection instead.

‘’We need to help Tony, too,’’ she yells in his ear, barely coming over the noise of the streaming black spell that bangs on her shield. She looks strained, but her shields hold steady. ‘’He’s not a sorcerer – he won’t be able to resist the Curse of Cyttorak for long.’’

Stephen dares risk a glance at Tony in the corner; he’s too far away for him to see clearly, but it’s obvious that Tony isn’t doing well. ‘’Go,’’ he tells her, and with his left hand, creates a shield of his own. Minoru runs towards Tony.

Only the limp body of Alexander Wright is still in the centre. Stephen doesn’t know if the sorcerer is even alive or not; he hasn’t stirred once since they got here, but he has to try to save him, too. Chthon is right above him, however, and it won’t be easy to get there.

Chen is shooting magical arrows with a bow – an artefact he doesn’t get to use often, but his aim is impeccable. They explode into Chthon’s face, but the demon is unperturbed as he keeps throwing around curses. With a single movement of his hand, he throws a rope at Chen, who is too late to avoid it. The dark substance whirls itself around the sorcerer’s body and effectively traps him there.

The demon grunts in frustration as Brown manages to release Wong’s spell-prison, and tosses another curse at them. Brown throws herself and Wong to the ground; Wong follows up with a strong shield that bounces the energy of his spell back at him. It manages to hit Chthon and he roars; an inhuman sound that echoes through the entire Sanctum.

Stephen takes the opportunity to gain his attention. He needs Chthon to focus on him instead of on Wong and Brown, or on Minoru, who’s crouching in front of Tony with very little protection. Chen is still wrestling with his bounds, but he’s too far away for Stephen to help at that exact moment.

‘’Wanda!’’ he yells. ‘’Help Minoru!’’

Wanda gets moving, while Stephen uses every single spell he can think of in rapid succession. Chthon’s attention is not fully on him, but he has to deflect Stephen’s spells and thus can’t attack them as he wants to. 

Chthon is stronger, but there are seven of them, now Wong is free; it’s enough to manage his attention. ‘’Stephen, watch out!’’ Wong yells out at him. Stephen ducks when a deadly curse just flies above his head.

Chthon must be furious. The pitch black curse smashes into the wall, crushing the first piece of it, as it sizzles into nothing. These curses are the most dangerous of all, but they also cost a lot of energy. They will have to be careful and keep up their shields; Chthon may tire himself out and will be easier to overcome.

Unfortunately, Chthon has played the long game. He knows all of them reasonably well, maybe with the exception of Wanda. He has thought this through too long and too often for him to become as sloppy as that, despite his rage. 

Stephen throws another curse at him, feeling himself grow wearier as well. He is not being careful with his energy, either. He can still go for a while, but he needs to figure something out that’s not simply distracting Chthon by weakening himself. He just needs to give Minoru a while to lift Tony’s curse – she knows how to lift that one, at least, but she needs time.

Wanda is still shielding Minoru, so she can’t distract him, but Wong throws himself into the fight as if nothing has happened, standing beside the steady Zhao. Brown joins, and her spells have always been strong; the four of them together manage to keep Chthon’s attention, until the demons rises to the top of the room and with one gesture, drowns the room in darkness.

A cold gush of wind brushes past Stephen, and he feels himself still. The only thing that still illuminates the room is Chthon’s effervescent body, the red lines dripping light. Before Stephen can think to throw up his shield again, Chthon creates six lashes and tightens them like nooses on their necks.

Stephen tugs at his, but he does not achieve anything as the rope tightens. It almost burns his hand when he pulls at it again, but he bares his teeth and keeps going, lighting up his own hands with a spell. He pushes at it, and when that doesn’t work, he swipes like a wild animal. Chthon rises above them, delighted with the turn of events. Without difficulty, he holds onto the nooses, looking down at them.

‘’I think I know how this is going to end,’’ he says in glee, tightening the glowing strings of magic. Stephen sees bright spots dance in front of his eyes as he struggles to breathe; he can hear Zhao fighting against it, and he sees Brown wildly trying to get loose.

Minoru has stilled, only looking up towards Chthon with dark, resentful eyes, but her grim countenance doesn’t betray any defeat. Stephen wonders at her for a moment, before a shining blue brightens up the room more starkly than it was before.

The Iron Man suit rises, the mask up. Tony still looks grievously ill, but even from far away, Stephen can see his resolve. Chthon barely has time to move before Tony loads the beam from his arc reactor and fires, the flashing blue prevailing over the ominous red luminosities from Chthon and his curses. At once, Stephen can feel the noose slipping away and takes a deep breath, rising up.

Chthon falls through three walls, and the room goes up in dust. ‘’I don’t think so,’’ Tony says, still flying. Now he looks down on the demon. ‘’You’ve done enough – killed enough people and ruined enough lives. And all for what? Revenge on someone that’s never done anything to you?’’

Chthon snarls, rising up in his red glory. Stephen casts a shield, so that the demon can’t come too close to Tony without crossing him. His Masters join them, and with the seven of them, the shield becomes too powerful for Chthon to destroy it. ‘’If the Ancient One is not here to feel my wrath, then her followers shall!’’ he roars, and sends a dark wave of power at them, simply to disturb them.

‘’Keep standing!’’ Stephen howls, holding his hands forward despite the pressure. ‘’Hold the shield!’’

Tony lands next to him. He is a mess – despite the suit, it’s clear that Tony is ready to keel over at any given moment. His eyes are dark and unfocused, and there’s a few bruises forming along his jaw. His skin is coated with a sheen of sweat and grime. ‘’How do we finish him off?’’ he asks, despite the exhaustion he must be feeling.

Stephen grits his teeth as he holds his shield and thinks of everything he knows about demons. Most of his knowledge comes from ancient texts; he doesn’t think a demon has been encountered in the last two hundred years at least, and none as powerful as Chthon. 

Demons are spiritual beings, who thrive on the use of dark energy. They are innately powerful and more gifted than human sorcerers, on account of it being their natural state. On the other hand, Chthon has just spent the majority of a year in the body of a human sorcerer, and couldn’t be as strong as he usually is. 

In a certain way, Chthon is similar to Galactus. Both are far stronger than any human alone; but there are eight of them – six Sanctum-trained sorcerers and two Avengers. They defeated Galactus, and Stephen couldn’t be there for that. It was Tony who sacrificed himself and scarcely made it back to him; Stephen still feels the anxiety and sorrow he’d known those few days when he’d thought Tony was dead.

He’s not going to let anything threaten his happiness again. Here he stands, with a few of the people he cares about most; having lost friends and family before, and not ready to do it again. Tony stands beside him, strong in his tenacity, and if Stephen can’t do this alone, then he will do it with the group of people who have become like a family to him.

‘’We can’t kill him,’’ he shouts back. ‘’But we can bind him.’’

Chthon laughs at that, raspy and joyless. ‘’The Ancient One barely managed it, the first time!’’ the demon says, and pushes harder. Stephen bares his teeth and holds. ‘’And her spell gave out when she died. Do you think you can do it, Sorcerer Supreme? Do you think you’re powerful enough to enchant _me_?’’

Stephen doesn’t deign it worthy of a response. Instead, he drops his shield. At once, the remaining seven sorcerers strain their shoulders, holding it together. Stephen takes a moment to turn to Tony, taking his gauntlet for a second. Tony’s eyes find his.

‘’Hit him with everything you’ve got,’’ Stephen tells him. ‘’This is going to be easier when he’s at his weakest.’’

Tony nods, and Stephen turns back as the man flies up into the air. ‘’Stephen!’’ Wong calls, his voice edgy. All of their hands are shaking with the effort of keeping Chthon at bay, infinitely harder without Stephen to help them.

It is not the time to let fear guide him. Stephen closes his eyes and finds what he found the first time, when the Ancient One showed him; power he didn’t know he had, before. The Cloak gently lifts him into the air, bringing him next to Tony in the air. He doesn’t have to have his eyes opened to know that; he can feel it, from every single strand of energy floating in the air. Broken spells and unfinished curses tingle; remaining traces swirl impalpably around him.

With a swift movement, he gathers up all the energy he still feels; the dark curses weigh on him, for a moment, but Stephen takes a deep breath and pushes past the unnerving sensation. With a single breath, the world goes silent for him.

All Stephen can still feel is the energy swirling inside of him, and Tony’s steady presence – waiting, watching. And he breathes out.

The effect is instantaneous – glimmering magic finds its way past everyone’s shields, indestructible and intangible, weaving its way. Dozens of spells and curses, mixed and mingled until they’re not recognizable anymore, gushing over Chthon.

The demon is trapped under the gulf of power for a moment, and Stephen does not hesitate in sending over even more. It is as if his body is made of spells; his soul is made of kinetic energy; his beating heart nothing more than a whispered curse, ready to strike down anyone who opposes it. Another energy joins with his own; Tony’s lasers, steadily aiming at Chthon, helping Stephen to keep him down.

The Masters respond just as quickly. They drop their own shields and create whips and snares; sparkling in the dust and soot, forcing Chthon into the defence. Not that they give him much of a chance to shield himself, as Stephen feels the energy bursting from every pore of him. He doesn’t feel exhausted; it is as if he has become a spell of his own, forever creating its own source of power and renewing it.

‘’Bind him!’’ Minoru yells at him, her hair whipping with the trembling energy in the room. Stephen does not speak, but starts on focusing something else than merely trapping Chthon under the power. He envisions the binding spell, resilient and resolute – all slivers of energy remaining in the room fall to Stephen’s power, and with a single-minded focus that he has never known before, he forms it with a single gesture of his hand and _pushes_.

The whining sound of Tony’s lasers become inaudible under the storm that starts in the basement, at that; walls break down, the dust making it hard to see what exactly is happening.

All of them stand ready, seven sorcerers performing a ritual that hasn’t been done in centuries, all of them giving their power to bind one whose strength is superior to their own; but combined, not even a demon as skilled and shrewd as Chthon can resist them. There is no last sound from him as the spell starts taking effect – or at least, it’s not anything Stephen can hear over the rumbling sound of their power combining to form a greater whole.

The strain grows, and Stephen can feels his muscles trembling despite feeling extremely calm on the inside. His mind is strong enough to cast this spell; his body is weaker, but it will hold. It must hold, as that is the only way they can stop Chthon for now. And it’s working – they are binding the demon, all of them at once.

Chthon is not fully powerless yet, and desperately claws at the nearest sorcerer. Master Chen lets out a cry of pain and takes a step back, and his spell is wavering. It requires utmost concentration, above any sensation of the body. Stephen closes his eyes again and gives everything he can.

Binding is a difficult process. It basically secures the demon’s position in a gap, somewhere in another dimension; somewhere he can’t leave as long as the spell lingers there, effectively trapping him somewhere that’s not quite Earth, but that also not quite anything else. It’s the safest place to keep a demon, certainly, though it’s not easy to punch a hole in the fabric of the dimension, put a demon there, and sow it back up again without damaging anything else.

Stephen is leading the spell, however, and Minoru and Wong are guiding him with a similar state of mind. Brown, Zhao and Wanda provide enough power for them to keep doing so, even as Chen’s own spell starts wavering. Tony, besides him, cannot join in the spell but is still aiming at Chthon with all he has, thus keeping him subdued. 

‘’Hold it!’’ Stephen roars, his throat aching. The spell starts to slow down, the dimension closing with an extremely livid demon bound in it; it starts melting closed, sizzling and sparkling with the energy coming from it. The binding spell lights up the entire room, not leaving room for anything but the storm of brightness and the thundering noise it has created. 

All Stephen is, in that moment, is the energy for a spell – he burns brightly, his mind not wavering for a moment as he purposefully guides the enchantment, and then closes it.

At once, the light is gone. Only dust remains, and broken walls, and coughing sorcerers. The Cloak gently brings Stephen back to the floor, and he sags to his knees, panting as he looks at his trembling hands.

‘’Did it work?’’ Wanda asks, glancing fearfully at where Chthon disappeared. ‘’Is he gone?’’

Tony lands beside him and his suit disappears from his body. He sits beside Stephen, wordlessly burrowing his head in his neck. Stephen leans against him, finding mutual comfort in Tony’s soft breathing on his skin.

‘’It’s over,’’ he mutters, and brushes through Tony’s hair with all his remaining energy. ‘’He’s bound, now. He can’t get out anymore. We’re safe.’’

Minoru stares lifelessly at the broken walls. There’s grime on her face and in her hair, but she doesn’t seem to notice any of it. All of them, in fact, look battered and bruised, and in need of a nice bath. ‘’Is everyone alright?’’ Wong calls out.

Only Chen shakes his head, injured by the whip Chthon had on him earlier. Minoru glances towards Zhao, and then her gaze glides towards a body still lying on the floor.

Alexander Wright.

She manages to get herself up to walk towards him. Stephen doesn’t expect much; he believes the sorcerer to be dead, after everything that’s happened to him. It is a strong soul that manages to survive a demon possessing their body for such a long time, and Wright didn’t stir once during the fight.

Stephen presses a quick kiss to Tony’s cheek, not caring about the dirt and sweat. Tony looks toward him, grimacing. ‘’Are you okay?’’ he whispers.

Tony rises his eyebrows. ‘’I’m more worried about you. What you just did – I’ve never seen anything like that. I didn’t know you could do that.’’

‘’Neither did I,’’ Stephen admits, and savours the way that Tony’s hands linger on his own. ‘’You were cursed for I don’t know how long before we got here – are you sure you’re alright?’’

‘’Well – let’s say I’m not _completely_ sure. But I think that –‘’

‘’Strange,’’ Minoru interferes, turning towards him quickly. ‘’Wright – he’s alive! He’s not breathing, but he’s alive.’’

‘’Alive?’’ Stephen echoes, cursing himself for not checking either. He should never just have assumed, only because it seems unlikely. Tony loosens his hold before Stephen can even think of it, but then he scrambles up with all the power he still has in him. Even taking the four steps towards Wright’s body is more of an effort than he wanted to deal with, at that moment.

He crouches next to Minoru, taking Wright’s pulse. It’s shallow, but it’s definitely there. And still, the sorcerer is not breathing.

‘’Create a portal to the Metro-General,’’ he calls back to the others. He doesn’t care who does it – whoever has the energy for it. ‘’Ask for Dr Palmer. Do it, _now_.’’

He pushes his lips onto Wright’s, breathing into him. He has done this so many times before; the process comes back to him easily. He can hear the scorching noise of a portal being formed a few feet away – he thinks it’s Brown who creates it. 

‘’Stephen –‘’ he hears Tony’s voice, hovering above him, worried. ‘’Stephen!’’

‘’What?’’ he asks sharply, sitting upright.

‘’Are you alright?’’ Tony asks, and suddenly he’s right in front of him. Stephen grasps his shoulder to keep himself steady, suddenly feeling dizzy. ‘’Hey – whoa, alright, easy. Hey, I think you’ve done enough, alright? Stephen? Stephen!’’

Stephen can’t hear him, as he goes limp.


	45. Chapter 45

Once again, Tony finds himself sitting anxiously on a hospital chair. This time, he’s not alone, as he was when Stephen was attacked. The doctors are in with Stephen and Wright now – both in separate rooms, but getting the best care they can.

Tony almost had a fit when Stephen lost consciousness in that dark basement under the London Sanctum. Master Brown is still there, explaining the situation to all the London Masters and keeping the situation under control. She’s also the one who went back to inform Master Moretti of everything. Tony doesn’t know what else she was going to do, as he was too busy helping Wong with lifting Stephen into the portal and bringing him here, as Moretti and Zhao did for Wright.

When he had asked, he’d been told that Christine Palmer isn’t here, but he’d been fine delivering Stephen into the hands of other doctors. He didn’t have much of a choice, and his concern is more pressing than the need for one specific doctor. He doesn’t know who, exactly, is looking over Stephen right now, anyway.

He knows Minoru is sitting outside Wright’s hospital room with Master Zhao, and Wong has gone with Chen to check out his injuries someplace else. So here Tony sits, waiting, with Wanda next to him. They both silently stare at the white walls; Tony can’t stop thinking about everything that has happened.

It doesn’t help that his entire body is still aching from whatever curse Chthon cast on him, when they happened upon him – but it’ll pass, he’s certain. Even if the tremors that still wreck through his body hurt like hell.

‘’I still don’t understand everything,’’ Wanda says eventually, looking up towards him. ‘’Why did that demon – Chthon – why did he want to Galactus to come? How did he manage that, anyway? And what about all those curses?’’

‘’All those curses?’’ Tony asks.

She sighs. ‘’You don’t remember – other people were cursed with your curse, as well. We still need to find out a way to lift it.’’

Tony frowns. ‘’There are? Well, I wouldn’t recommend doing it my way. Look, I don’t know – something to do with the Ancient One, right? That’s what I gathered from his comments, anyway. It must’ve been some form of revenge for something she did, but I don’t know anything about that. Stephen and Wong will know more about this kind of thing than we do.’’

She’s silent for a few moments. ‘’You’re probably right.’’

‘’Of course I am,’’ he huffs, and then looks over to her. ‘’Hey – thanks for coming to the Sanctums. You were a great help.’’

Wanda sends him a soft grin. ‘’Of course I am. Hey, are you alright? You keep shivering.’’

The plastic chairs aren’t helping the matter, of course. Tony is vastly sore all over. He shrugs, trying to make no big deal out of it. ‘’It’s that curse – but I’m sure it’ll pass, soon. They’ll probably be done helping Stephen soon, and then we can –‘’

‘’You’re injured?’’ Wanda asks in shock, rising from her chair and sitting down next to him.

‘’Not injured,’’ he protests. ‘’Just – the after-effects, okay. It’s not easy being cursed! I should know, I have a lot of experience!’’

‘’We should have someone check you out,’’ she insists, taking him by the wrist. ‘’Maybe there’s a doctor around here somewhere –‘’

‘’The only doctor I’ll allow to look at me is currently being helped himself,’’ Tony bites, uncomfortable despite being touched by her concern. ‘’Wanda – thank you, but I’ll be fine. There’s no doctor who can heal this, right? I’m fine.’’

She looks him over, her eyes intent and disbelieving. Eventually, though, she drops his sleeve and sits down again. ‘’The moment you start feeling worse, you tell me,’’ she warns him.

‘’Worse?’’ Christine Palmer says, turning around the corner and not even looking up as she sees them. She must’ve been informed about their presence, because Tony is infinitely more startled than she is upon seeing her. ‘’Are you injured, Mr Stark?’’

‘’Uh – call me Tony,’’ he says, rising to shake her hand. ‘’It’s a long story, but I’m fine.’’

Now he has two women staring at him in disbelief. Christine Palmer shakes her head. ‘’I’m sorry, but I’m disinclined to trust you,’’ she says wryly. ‘’I was just asked by that sorcerer lady to check you over. Something about a curse? She said she’d come see you, but Alexander Wright just got out of surgery and she’s checking up on him first.’’

‘’I’m _fine_ ,’’ Tony insists.

‘’I’ll sneak you into Stephen’s room if you come with me quietly and peacefully,’’ Palmer says decidedly, tilting her head at him in challenge. ‘’Otherwise, I’m going to put you on the other side of the hospital. Your call.’’

‘’You’re a mean lady,’’ he complains, as he sees her share a smile with Wanda. 

‘’They called me in on my free day because of you,’’ Christine says. ‘’I’m here now, so let me do my job. C’mon – Stephen’s sleeping, so you wouldn’t be allowed to see him if you weren’t my patient now. Technically, you’re still not allowed to, but I’m willing to bend some rules for you. Miss Maximoff, will you be alright on your own?’’

Wanda nods and goes off in search of Wong and Chen; Tony follows Christine towards the end of the hallway. ‘’Is he alright?’’ he asks anxiously.

She glances back at him, opening the door. ‘’Look for yourself,’’ she says, voice gently.

Tony walks in. The room is dark save for one light in the corner, and shadows play on Stephen’s pale face. He’s lying alone in the hospital room, the other beds empty. He hurries towards a chair next to Stephen’s bed, taking the hand of the unconscious man and pressing a kiss to it. 

‘’Hey, Stephen,’’ he whispers, taking no heed of the woman in the door opening, watching him tentatively. ‘’You better be alright, okay? You’re not allowed to scare me ever again like that, you hear me? Could you please wake up? Hey, doctor.’’

But Stephen doesn’t wake up. He breathes softly and regularly, and Tony lets his hand fall to the bed again. Not that he stops touching Stephen – he gently runs his finger along Stephen’s arm, feeling the warm skin under his fingertips. 

‘’You really do love him, don’t you?’’ Christine says, only now coming into the room and hitting the light. She closes the door behind her, but she doesn’t look at Tony. She stares at Stephen, instead, her expression unreadable.

‘’Yeah,’’ Tony acknowledges, not letting go of Stephen’s arm. ‘’He saved me. From more than one thing, too – I – I’m sorry, I just can’t lose him. When he fainted… well. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost him.’’

Wordlessly, Christine sits down beside Tony as well. ‘’I saw him, when he thought you were dead,’’ she starts slowly. ‘’He came here, and ran into a broom closet – it’s only because someone told me, actually, and I thought they were mad, until the other sorcerers showed up. And I saw how wrecked he was – I haven’t seen him like that, ever. And I was here when he lost his hands. But then again, he’s not exactly the same guy he was back then. And he loves you so much.’’

‘’I assure you, it’s requited,’’ Tony says quietly, staring at Stephen. He just wishes the sorcerer would wake up. ‘’He’s going to be fine, right?’’

‘’Definitely,’’ Christine says. ‘’He’s just overtaxed himself. He needs to take it easy for a few days and he’ll be right as rain. Now, c’mon, I promised that lady I’d check up on you. Just let me take a few tests and you can crash in here as well. Stephen’s going to be perfectly alright, Tony. I promise.’’

Tony takes a deep breath and stands, pressing a kiss to Stephen’s forehead before drawing back. ‘’Alright. Just because Stephen would kill me if I didn’t.’’

Christine smiles wryly. ‘’He would.’’

The tests don’t take a long time; Tony barely even pays attention to what she’s doing, his thoughts too full of Stephen. Despite Christine’s confirmation that Stephen will be fine, he can’t help but worry a bit. The sorcerer is too pale and quiet, for his liking – he misses seeing Stephen’s light eyes, so intently focused, sometimes. He misses the way he hums along with Queen, and he misses the way that Stephen makes Tony’s worries fade away. 

It’s been too much. They deserve some rest, and hopefully, they’ll get it, this time. Tony takes the bed next to Stephen’s, when Christine is done with her tests and leaves – Tony is fine, outwardly. His blood pressure is a bit low, but as long as he doesn’t feel too bad, that doesn’t matter. 

The bed has wheels under it, and he rolls it towards Stephen, as close as he can. After, he gets into it and burrows into the blanket. He should probably search for Wong and let him know that Stephen’s going to be fine, or find Minoru and ask after Wright. He doesn’t want to do any of that – he’s too exhausted to even seriously consider it. The bed is soft and clean, and that’s all he cares to think about in that moment. He takes Stephen’s hand into his own and lands his head on the cushion.

For a few moments, everything is eerily quiet in the room. Tony can’t think on it for too long, as he falls asleep.

~*~

Stephen wakes up and first recognizes the pungent smell of hospital. The Metro-General hospital, more specifically; he’s worked here for too long not recognize it straight away. The second thing he recognizes, when he opens his eyes, is the mop of dark hair that lies beside him. Not completely beside him – they’re on two separate beds, but Tony’s hand rests on Stephen’s bed.

Involuntarily, he smiles at the sight. He can only see the upper part of Tony’s head.

He can think of what happened. After the battle – and is it over? Is it actually over, now? – he fainted, and the others must’ve brought them to the hospital. He doesn’t feel too bad, just still exhausted. His muscles ache and he has a faint headache, but it’s nothing compared to what it could have been. 

Tony doesn’t seem to be injured, either, from the part Stephen can see of his face. He presses a button, waiting for someone to come. He wants to know what happened to everyone else, but is loath to leave Tony here by himself. Besides, he’s not sure he’s up to walking yet. His entire body feels like jelly.

It’s Christine who comes in, after a few minutes. Stephen sits up straighter. ‘’Hi,’’ he says.

She raises her eyebrows at him, amused. ‘’Can you ask your friends to stop asking for me as a doctor?’’ she says. ‘’I’m not the only capable person at this hospital, you know.’’

‘’Well, you’re the only one I trust,’’ Stephen says, and then turns to Tony. ‘’Is he alright?’’

‘’Seemingly just exhausted,’’ Christine shrugs. ‘’Bit like you. Then again, I heard something about a curse, and that’s not exactly my area of expertise. You may want to look into that, doctor Strange.’’

‘’He wasn’t cursed for long,’’ he says, but he can’t help himself and takes Tony’s hand either way. He still remembers Mordo and his followers; they must have suffered for hours under the curse. Maybe Chthon added something to the curse to make them die quicker – he’d wanted to prevent them from taking a ship at the Compound, he’d said. The longer Stephen thinks on it, the more things start making sense to him.

Fortunately, they found Tony and Wong in time to save them from that fate. Christine isn’t smiling anymore, when he looks back to her. ‘’Look, Stephen, I don’t know what has happened, and I don’t think I want to know,’’ she starts, ‘’but whatever you’re up to – it seems pretty dangerous.’’

‘’It’s over now,’’ Stephen says, though he still has a hard time believing that. It all happened so quickly and suddenly – he still can’t connect all the dots. 

Christine looks doubtful, and Stephen can’t blame her. His existence is very different now – but he wouldn’t change it. He has learnt so much more about what it is to be the Sorcerer Supreme, these past few months, and how to combine it with being a doctor. He knows his duties and he knows how to perform them – and even if he can’t bear it all by himself, he has his friends at the Sanctum and the one he loves most at his side.

Maybe things can be fine, from here on.

‘’You should know that there’s quite a few visitors for you,’’ Christine says. ‘’Including Miss Potts and Colonel Rhodes for Tony. And your merry gathering, too. I’ve barely convinced them not to bring in all the Avengers, but I’m not sure how long I can hold them off.’’

Stephen grins weakly. ‘’How long has he slept?’’ he asks, nodding towards Tony. ‘’I really would prefer not to wake him. It’s been a rough couple of – well, months, honestly.’’

‘’I’d agree with you, but I actually think he’d be glad to see you,’’ Christine answers honestly. ‘’He was pretty worried. Besides, all your friends want to hear of you too.’’

Stephen nods thoughtfully. ‘’Let them in here, but give me a couple of minutes to talk with Tony,’’ he decides.

Christine accepts that, and moves back towards the door. Just as she’s about to step out, she turns. ‘’Stephen,’’ she begins, and hesitates. Despite that, she continues. ‘’I just – I’m happy for you, you know? When you left here, you had nothing and no one, and here you are. That’s not just friends outside, that’s a family, and here’s a man who’d do anything for you. You should hold onto that.’’

Quietly, Stephen nods. ‘’I know, and I’m grateful every day,’’ he says honestly. He _is_ grateful – his life may be a dangerous one, but he couldn’t go back even if he wanted to. And he doesn’t want to at all. The Sanctum is a home he never had, and the sorcerers a family he didn’t know he needed. And now he has Tony, who makes every piece of life a bit brighter with his mischievous smile and his witty humour. 

No, he wouldn’t change a thing. He may have a few regrets in his life, but he can’t regret where they brought him. Christine nods and then disappears, while Stephen turns back to Tony.

‘’Wake up, Tony,’’ he murmurs, leaning over the sleeping figure. ‘’Tony, I’m here. Wake up.’’

Tony is slow to wake up – he blinks a few times, lost in his dreams. ‘’Stephen,’’ he mutters, and squeezes the hand that Stephen has folded into his own. ‘’Hey – you’re awake.’’

‘’Yeah, I am,’’ Stephen says, closing the distance. The kiss is a bit awkward, with the way they’re lying, but no less satisfying for it. He is acutely aware of the fact that he only asked for a few minutes, so he draws himself away from Tony’s alluring lips and looks at him. ‘’You’re feeling okay?’’

‘’I had a nightmare,’’ Tony says wryly. ‘’It only reminds me that things aren’t that bad.’’

‘’What was it about?’’

‘’Uh – Galactus. He ate all of you, only leaving me. Then Chthon came from nothing, and he cursed me again.’’

‘’I’m sorry,’’ Stephen mutters, rubbing Tony’s hands. ‘’We’re all fine. It’s over, now. Galactus isn’t coming to eat the energy, and you’re not cursed anymore. Everyone remembers you, now, and not any curse will affect you ever again, if I can help it. Not the Curse of Athazagora, not the Curse of Cyttorak – I’ll guarantee it.’’

‘’Right,’’ Tony says, snorting. ‘’Curses are attracted to me the way Galactus was attracted to energy. They can’t seem to stay away.’’

Stephen laughs it off, pressing a quick kiss against Tony’s temple. He just wants to retort with a quick joke when a realization hits him. Tony notices him stiffening and draws away, looking at him with concern.

That’s just the moment that the others come in. ‘’Are we interrupting something?’’ Minoru asks, striding in. Wong and Wanda follow, as well as Rhodey and Pepper. The latter two rush towards Tony, but the man is focusing Stephen instead.

‘’The curses,’’ Stephen says, calculating in his mind despite the pounding. ‘’Do we know how many people were cursed to be forgotten?’’

Wong frowns at him. ‘’Stephen, it’s not the time to worry about that. We can’t remember how many people were cursed, but we’ll figure out something to do with them. You should rest, right now.’’

‘’No, he’s realizing something,’’ Tony says, quickly reading him. ‘’What’s it?’’

‘’Galactus was attracted to energy,’’ Stephen repeats. ‘’We all knew how much energy Tony emitted. We even used him as bait – he was bait all this time, and not just ours. The amount of energy that came from him wasn’t enough to attract the attention of something as dangerous as Galactus, but he wasn’t the only one cursed. All celebrities, all high-profile – all so that they would radiate a lot of energy, all so that Galactus would eventually be drawn to Earth and its unusual energy activity. How did we not see this before?’’

‘’But then they must’ve cursed hundreds of people,’’ Minoru states, though her eyes are wide. ‘’The energy they would’ve emitted – and we would know of nothing, because we wouldn’t remember. Even the people we did remember – they wouldn’t have been enough to make us realize that they emitted enough energy to attract Galactus.’’

‘’Chthon would have convinced Mordo that it’s a punishment,’’ Wong says quietly. ‘’Make him the head and face of the operation, in case anything went wrong or we would figure it out. Chthon wasn’t human, so he would remember everyone anyway. Mordo had a reason to fight the Sanctum, and Chthon used him as a shield – promised him that the sorcerers would lose faith in Stephen’s leadership and turn to Mordo as Sorcerer Supreme instead. It’s all just smoke and mirrors. Give us Mordo to hunt, give Mordo a task that appeals to his sense of righteousness, and in the meanwhile, he worked behind the scenes, luring Galactus here with the energy emitting from the curses.’’

‘’Tony figured out that the sensors didn’t go off for one of the cursed people at the Avengers Compound, when we went to visit them,’’ Stephen says. ‘’He probably doesn’t remember – but you did, Tony. That must’ve been Chthon cursing even more people – Mordo wouldn’t remember, so what’s the harm?’’

‘’It’s all nice and well, but Galactus has already been dealt with,’’ Pepper interferes, always the practical woman. She stands high on her heels, beside Tony’s bed, with Rhodes a silent figure beside her. ‘’Can you lift that curse, this time? Without putting anyone in mortal danger?’’

‘’They didn’t exactly put me there,’’ Tony says, but Pepper stares at him in frustration. 

‘’We’re going to search the London Sanctum when Master Strange is better,’’ Minoru tells her, ignoring Tony. ‘’Chthon’s plans failed, and we took him by surprise. Both the Curse of Athazagora and the Curse of Cyttorak are ancient Sanctum spells – he couldn’t use any dark magic, while using Wright’s body. He must’ve gotten them from somewhere.’’

‘’Just give me two days,’’ Stephen says, and sighs. ‘’Alright – none of this matters, right now. We have successfully bound Chthon. We have time to rest, now, without worrying over future dangers. It’s over, alright? It’s finally over.’’

He can only believe his own words when he sees Tony’s small smile, directed at him. He can’t help but send one back, and let his hope grow.

~*~

The others linger until Christine is forced to send them away. It’s not even night, but Stephen is tired already. Their rhythms are messed up, and it shows, but Stephen is glad to sleep through the day. Tony seems equally exhausted, and yawns as he waves farewell to Rhodes and Pepper.

‘’I can’t believe this,’’ the man mutters when they’re all by themselves. ‘’I haven’t been awake for even two hours.’’

Stephen runs his fingers over Tony’s arm, smiling faintly as he sees the goose bumps appear. ‘’You need to rest,’’ he says, and his finger lights up with a touch of magic. He doesn’t want to overdo it, but they didn’t have a chance to check over Tony yet. He knows, logically, that the man will be fine, but he still feels better when he can see for himself. ‘’The Curse of Cyttorak is no trifle. Wright’s body took months to recover fully from its effects.’’

‘’But he was cursed for far longer,’’ Tony argues, though he doesn’t protest. ‘’I can’t have been cursed for more than half an hour before you found me.’’

‘’You still will have to take it easy for a few days,’’ Stephen tells him. ‘’Don’t worry. We’ll go back to the Sanctum tomorrow. The danger is over, now – we don’t have to hurry. We can figure out what to do when we’re not under threat.’’

Tony smiles and rolls over to Stephen’s bed. Stephen shuffles until he’s at the edge and Tony can lay beside him; it only fits just barely, on the small cot, but he feels infinitely better with the heat of Tony’s body against his own.

‘’Stay at the Sanctum,’’ Tony repeats. ‘’I like that idea. You know what we should do? We should take a vacation, somewhere. Just you and me, lounging on a beach. Hey, I promised you a date. Remember that? And you promised me one, too. We have time for that, now. We’ve got all the time in the world.’’

The bright smile is so irresistible that Stephen can’t help but kiss him. He remembers the time they talked about the dates; it’s still hard to believe that they have the time for it, now. It’s hard to believe that they have a life that can reach beyond the Sanctum now. Tony won’t want to stay there forever, Stephen knows – but it’ll be easy to move around, with his portals and Tony’s suit. 

He can see it clearly, when he imagines it. 

There’s still a ton to work out, of course. They both have to rest, first, and find out a way to lift the other curses. There is the press to deal with, and Stephen has a duty towards the Sanctum first. The London Sanctum needs to be helped, and Wright set to his right place and assisted. He needs to ask Wanda to become his apprentice, officially, and set Lydia Irwin on the path to becoming a Master. There’s a dozen tasks lying around in the Sanctum, all of them needing his attention.

But here is Tony, alive and well, pressing his lips to Stephen’s in contentment and talking about their future;

and there is nothing more he could wish for.


	46. Chapter 46

The days pass quickly, after that. Stephen regains much of his energy, and Tony follows suit. Soon enough, Christine allows them to go back to the Sanctum, waving them away with a wry smile and a promise to visit soon.

The first thing Stephen does, after returning to the Sanctum, is call off the lockdown that is still in place. Chthon is bound, and won’t be able to return as long as their spell holds; Mordo is dead, for better or worse, and his followers with him. There’s no one left of this entire mystery to pose a threat to them, still.

The second thing he does, together with Tony, is move all of his meagre belongings in Stephen’s bedroom. There’s not much use in pretending they don’t live together, already, and have from the start. The Sanctum has become a home to Tony as it is to Stephen, and all the Masters – and now also the sorcerers who didn’t remember Tony during his curse – recognize his place by Stephen’s side. There’s not a sliver of doubt that they are best, together.

The third thing he does, with Tony, but also Wong and Minoru, is visit the Avengers, and explain everything that has happened so far to them.

The fourth thing he does, almost at the same time, is ask Wanda to become his apprentice. Tony nods at him in approval, and Stephen’s glad to see that the feelings between them have shifted, as well. Wanda accepts, though she doesn’t want to live in the Sanctum; with the portals, Stephen doesn’t see why that has to be a problem at all. Her magic is dynamic and unique, and he looks forward to helping her control it better.

The fifth thing he does is visit Haman’s grave again. 

They may have come out as the victors, when it comes to their battles with Galactus and Chthon, but he doesn’t want to forget what they have lost. He knees down next to the smooth gravestone, touching it in sorrow. There are fresh flowers there, from Master Moretti, and with a hint of magic, Stephen makes sure they’ll be bright and lively for a bit longer.

‘’Thank you for your help, my friend,’’ he whispers, and thinks of the empty place in the Sanctum where his Master used to be. ‘’We won’t forget it.’’

His Cloak pats him as he rises again. He missed the garment while he was in the hospital – Wong had taken it back to the Sanctum, but they’re reunited now. Stephen smiles softly and pats it back. ‘’Yes, thank you, too.’’

He returns to the Sanctum to find Tony waiting for him. Like he suspected, Tony still has trouble going through full days without a nap, or at least some form of rest. Stephen is well aware how much the man hates what he perceives as a weakness, but it’s a simple consequence of the Curse of Cyttorak. It will take a while for him to regain his full strength, but that doesn’t stop Tony from complaining about it.

Neither, however, does it stop Tony from falling asleep on Stephen’s shoulder when he’s particularly tired, and Stephen has grown very fond of the moments that he slips away and burrows into him. He always takes care to ensure Tony will have a nap at that moment, and it’s worth the way Tony will grumble at him afterwards.

Right now, Tony is wide awake, his eyes dark and full of life. Maybe he’s just slept for a while – it’s late in the afternoon already, and Stephen’s been away for a while. ‘’Hello there, stranger,’’ he teases, walking by Tony as he drops a kiss on his head. ‘’Come here often?’’

‘’Occasionally,’’ Tony answers, turning around to watch Stephen. ‘’There’s this guy here with magic hands. I’ve been waiting on him to show me.’’

Stephen laughs and turns back, now kissing Tony full on the lips. ‘’Well, little old me isn’t going to cut it, then?’’

‘’I don’t know,’’ Tony muses, taking Stephen’s hand and inspecting them thoroughly. ‘’I think these hands will do. They’re real doctor’s hands. Can they do any magic?’’

‘’Only if you ask nicely,’’ Stephen says, and pulls away with a fond smile, dropping the act. ‘’I have to meet with Minoru. We’re going to search through the London Sanctum for Chthon’s stuff, and I’m bringing Wong as well.’’

Tony turns, leaning against the wall. ‘’Yeah, you told me. Can you drop me off at Stark Industries? Pepper wanted to talk to me about some stuff. Hey, that thing at the London Sanctum, you’re sure that’s safe, right?’’

‘’Positively,’’ Stephen confirms. ‘’I’ll be back in time for dinner.’’

Tony takes his hand, and together, they step into a portal.

~*~

It’s odd to see that nothing has really changed, since Tony left. He clearly remembers the day that he’d seen Pepper and Rhodey for the first time together – breaking Tony’s heart. So much has happened since then, and Tony can’t be anything but excited for them.

Perhaps it was meant to be like this. Stephen makes him happier than he’s been in a long while, both the thrill of adventure and the soft call of home. They match in a way that Tony has rarely felt before; and he can see that Pepper has found the same with Rhodey.

They sit together, welcoming him in. Stephen has already left for his meeting with Minoru.

‘’I’m glad to see you,’’ Tony says, kissing Pepper on the cheek and patting Rhodey on the back. ‘’How have you guys been? We didn’t get the chance to talk much in the hospital.’’

‘’Busy,’’ Rhodey answers him, as they sit down. ‘’We’re preparing for the baby – it’s still a way off, but it’s best to get a head start on these things. There’s a lot to figure out.’’

‘’I may not know a lot about babies, but you know that I’m here to help,’’ Tony says. ‘’How far along are you, anyway? You’re not showing at all.’’

Pepper grins. ‘’That’s good, because we don’t want the press to find out yet,’’ she states, and rests a hand on her belly. ‘’Three months, now. So there’s still some time to go. That’s not what we needed to talk to you about, though – there’s some matters we really need to discuss.’’

‘’Such as?’’ Tony asks, leaning back on the couch.

‘’Your re-institution as head of the R&D department. Do you even know how much our production has dropped in your absence? I remember all the days scratching my head about how that happened, when I didn’t remember you, but there we go. Also, your living situation. I assume… you’ll want to move back in here?’’

She looks a bit uncomfortable at that last bit, her sense of guilt kicking in. Tony looks around; they’ve really made the place a home. It’s clear that Rhodey lives here too, now, and it’s peaceful and cosy. It’s evident in every little detail.

‘’You can stay here, if you want,’’ Tony offers. ‘’It’ll be easier for you to work from the Tower than go anywhere else. I’m not in a hurry to get out of the Sanctum, you know? I can find another place easily – hey, maybe I can rebuild the mansion in California. I loved that place.’’

Rhodey frowns at him. ‘’California?’’ he repeats weakly. ‘’Aren’t you going to – well, stay here?’’

Tony laughs at that. ‘’You forget I’m dating a sorcerer who can go the other side of the world in a heartbeat,’’ he reminds them. ‘’Besides, I have the suit. And I can also buy another apartment in New York, or just stay at the Avengers Compound. I’m not going to leave, guys. I’ve got you here, and Peter, and the Avengers. Stephen can get me there and back anytime.’’

‘’We should have dinner with him soon,’’ Pepper says, and writing it down as if it’s been decided already. It probably has, if she insists on it.

‘’You’re not going to scare him off, are you?’’ Tony asks, only half-joking. If there’s anyone who can scare off potential life partners, it’s going to be Pepper. Not that he thinks she would – but she does have the power to. No one can resist her. Not to say that Stephen would listen to her – it is hard to miss the fond smiles the sorcerer sends him. No, if anyone would be able to stand up to Pepper, it’s Stephen.

Her answering smile is soft. ‘’You’re crazy about him,’’ she says. ‘’We want to get to know him better, Tony. If he’s really going to be such a big part of your life – don’t you think we should?’’

‘’I know him,’’ Rhodey protests. 

‘’You’re coming,’’ Pepper says threateningly.

Rhodey gulps, and Tony laughs.

~*~

Wright shakes Stephen’s hand rather firmly as they enter the London Sanctum, despite the sickly paleness of his face. ‘’Good to meet you, Master Strange,’’ he says, a bit wryly. ‘’For real, this time.’’

He holds himself differently now that Chthon no longer has control over his body; it’s obvious that he’s still healing, too, but he holds himself more relaxed than Stephen has seen him before. It’s still odd to untangle the idea of who Wright was before with who he actually is now; he still looks exactly the same, minus a demon controlling him.

Stephen offers a smile despite the situation, and shakes the outstretched hand. ‘’You too, Master Wright. I’m truly sorry about what happened, before.’’

‘’You couldn’t have known,’’ Wright offers. ‘’I barely even realized.’’

‘’Do you remember anything he did?’’ Stephen asks, wincing as he does so. If Tony were here, he would’ve poked his ribs and told him how tactless he’s being. ‘’I’m sorry – it might help us with the search –‘’

‘’No, I’m sorry,’’ Wright answers, and looks towards Minoru. ‘’Tina already asked me, but I can’t say. Since I’ve been back, I’ve been too busy rebuilding the Sanctum and catching up. I’ve left my private work room undisturbed for you – I’m not sure if there would be any booby traps, and I’m certainly not strong enough to deal with anything a demon left there now. If you’d like, I can send a few Masters with you.’’

‘’Didn’t they notice at all?’’

Wright shakes his head. ‘’As I understand it, the odd behaviour was written off to healing from the Curse of Cyttorak, and I’ve always been private. It only turned out to be a hindrance, now, but Chthon took advantage of the fact that I often locked myself up before. There’s not many people who noticed anything.’’

Stephen glances at Minoru, fully aware that she _had_ noticed. She’d told him that Wright was acting differently from the start – but she couldn’t have suspected anything, either. It’s not every day that a demon takes over the body of a Master, after all, and Chthon had planned everything perfectly.

‘’Wong is coming to assist us,’’ Stephen says. ‘’We’ll be able to handle it, I presume. If we need more hands, we’ll tell you. Are you ready, Minoru?’’

She nods, and then they spend the next few hours searching Wright’s private room, one that Chthon used for all his clandestine plans. Wong arrives only a bit later and helps them scour out the room. There’s surprisingly few booby-traps, but still, they are careful about the search. Zhao comes to help them out as well, so it’s the four of them that slowly but steadily clear the entire space.

There is some information to be found, at least. There’s a list of names with Mordo’s followers – which is useful for tracking any potential relatives that the dead sorcerers may still have, and letting them rest in peace as they deserve. Chthon obviously monitored and checked all the sorcerers that they could get out of the Sanctum; some familiar names are crossed out, staying true to the Sanctums. There’s a few papers all around, but there’s not much.

It’s Wong who finds the hiding place, in the end. ‘’Stephen!’’ he calls out, as he is researching the floorboards. ‘’There’s something here.’’

Stephen kneels beside him, resting his fingers on the wooden floor. Something magic is tingling there, indeed – and once again, not Sanctum-like magic at all. ‘’He’s hidden this,’’ he says. ‘’He must have not used it in a while. He didn’t have time to hide anything else – it has to be important.’’

With the four of them, they manage to dispel the spell easily. Zhao lifts the boards from the floor, and Wong grasps the dry manuscript that lies there, carefully tracing the frail cover. ‘’This is from the Sanctum,’’ he mutters, turning it over in his hand and blowing the dust off it. ‘’It has to be centuries old.’’

He opens it, the dry pages rustling. Wong is careful with the old manuscript, only cautiously touching the sheets as he turns them, his eyes flowing over the boldly written words. ‘’What language is this?’’ Stephen says, watching from behind Wong’s shoulder.

‘’Chinese,’’ Wong says, skimming past the pages. Stephen can see it now, too; the handwriting isn’t anything he is used to, but the alphabet becomes more familiar as he knows what he should be looking for. ‘’Master Minoru, if you would –‘’

Master Minoru raises her eyebrows and takes the manuscript from Wong, but only to pass it forward towards Master Zhao instead. Zhao smiles toothily and starts browsing, equally careful with the fragile pages. He mutters to himself as he quickly reads on, stopping somewhere just before the middle and squinting at it.

‘’He’s found it,’’ Minoru says, as she traces the words with her finger. ‘’This is definitely the book that Chthon found the curses in. Here – the Curse of Athazagora. Here’s how to cast it, and the information on the output. Remember that note I found on the woman in my Sanctum who was cursed similarly, when you first brought Tony to me? There’s a few different ways of casting this spell, giving it different effects. This is it.’’

‘’If we know how the curse works –‘’ Wong starts, looking towards Stephen.

‘’Then we can figure out how to undo it,’’ Stephen finishes for him, feeling the relief bubble in his chest. Tony may keep forgetting that there are others in the same predicament as he used to be, but Stephen worries about them. As long as they know the curse’s basic patterns, they can think of a way to lift it, as well.

‘’There’s tons of curses in here,’’ Minoru mutters, reading along with Zhao as he slowly reads the different sections. ‘’I don’t know all of these. Chthon must have found this tome somewhere and decided to use them while he was in Alexander’s body, as he couldn’t use his own magic.’’

‘’And that’s why he hid his traces, as well, because they still would reflect that he wasn’t taught by the Sanctum,’’ Stephen says and sighs. ‘’How did we never notice he didn’t actually use any magic around us? I’ve never seen him create a portal. I think the only time I saw him use magic is when he had to use that spell to remember Tony – he must have not even cast anything, then, I just didn’t think to check.’’

Minoru clasps him on the back. ‘’You know what they say about hindsight,’’ she says kindly. ‘’The only thing I’m still confused about is how Chthon came here and why he wanted to eradicate us.’’

‘’He mentioned the Ancient One,’’ Wong states. ‘’I’ve searched through what she has left behind, but there is not a single mention of Chthon. She must have bound him once, years ago. When she died, the spell dissipated. Demons live for revenge and destruction; he wanted to destroy Earth by using Galactus, or so I assume. When that failed, he settled for destroying the Sanctums instead, but we figured it out too soon for him to act against us.’’

‘’We should inform Alexander of what we’ve found,’’ Minoru says, looking around them. ‘’I don’t think there’s any actual threat left in this room – Chthon was unprepared, in the end, and he’ll be bound as long as our spell holds. And it will hold for a long time, I am sure of it. If we find a way to seal the gap, we may be able to trap him forever.’’

‘'But before we have to think about that, Wong and I will work on a counter-curse with Wong,’’ Stephen says, as they leave again. The Sanctum is silent in this part; Wright must’ve sent everyone on their way. He thinks back to the not-so distant past, when they’d faced Chthon. He remembers his worry for Tony and Wong, and he’s relieved at how everything has turned out.

~*~

They are both actually back in time for dinner. Tony’s full of questions, but waits to ask them. Stephen doesn’t look worried. Neither does Wong, actually, but it is far easier to look at Stephen’s expressions – he’s not that good at hiding his emotions, or maybe Tony has just become far better at reading him. Perhaps it’s a bit of both.

Anyway, Tony just sits beside Stephen, a bit too close but no one comments on it, and talks about going back to Stark Industries and about Pepper and Rhodey. He mentions how he’s meeting with the Avengers again soon and inviting Peter over to the Sanctum in a few days. Stephen just looks at him with that fond look in his eyes, listening carefully as Tony babbles about anything he can think of. He’s excited about returning to his regular life, though he’s certainly not planning to leave the Sanctum anytime soon.

Well, maybe for that vacation. He has a growing need to see Stephen in bathing suits. Maybe he’ll even tan a bit.

That stuff is all for the future, though. Tony wants to stay in New York, now that people remember him; he wants to help Peter with his homework, and he wants to play around in the lab with Bruce, and he wants to assist the Avengers with any mission they should have. He wants to help Pepper and Rhodey baby-proofing the Tower. Most of all, he wants to see what he and Stephen can grow to be when they’re not in a crisis. What home will be, and what they can make of it. 

He’s really enthusiastic about that part, too. More than he has been about anything else, so far. He wants to see that fond look on Stephen’s face every day, and know that it’s there because of him. 

Tony can’t say any of that, however, in the dining room. They’re surrounded by the Masters and other sorcerers; he thinks Stephen knows, though. It’s not as if Tony has been overtly covert with his sentiments.

So he sits there, and babbles about the mundane, and knows that he means the world.

~*~

He returns to his private room only late at night, after Stephen’s made a small beginning on working to lift the curse on everyone else – Tony’s turned in earlier than him, he can see. The man is waiting for him, his bare feet resting on the table as he half-sleeps on the couch already.

Stephen relishes in waking him with a soft kiss. Tony hums in his mouth as he wakes, but doesn’t push him away; rather, he presses into Stephen, soft and mellow. He tastes of sugar and sleepiness. ‘’Good evening,’’ Stephen breathes against his mouth. ‘’You’ve been eating donuts again.’’

Tony grins against his lips, but keeps Stephen trapped there with his hand on his nape. ‘’Simeon got some for me,’’ he murmurs. ‘’I think he still feels bad about all the times he kicked me out of the kitchen when he didn’t remember me.’’

‘’You’re going to get fat,’’ Stephen says, and kisses Tony again before the man can start complaining. He can feel the moment that Tony decides that kissing is more enjoyable than swearing at Stephen and melts into it again, eager to stay there.

Stephen almost ends up on top of him. Tony lets him, but after a few minutes he pushes Stephen off, heaving with exertion. ‘’I’m not the one who’s fat,’’ he says, glaring at him.

Stephen can only laugh it off, helping Tony sit up straight. ‘’So, we’ve found where Chthon got his curses from,’’ he says casually, as it becomes apparent that the kissing is over, for now. He fully intends to start it up again later, but Tony deserves to be in the know.

‘’It’s still weird,’’ Tony says, looking away as if lost in memories. ‘’I know you never cared for him particularly, but I thought Wright was my friend, for a while. He listened to me, sometimes, when I thought that you and I were never going to happen, and I couldn’t talk to anyone else. What was even the point of all of that, if he’s just a demon?’’

‘’Perhaps he thought you could be my weakness,’’ Stephen considers. ‘’He did use you against me, in the end. He failed, but he certainly tried. He played intricate games, Tony. Even now, I have trouble guessing at his intentions, and what exactly occurred. We think it’s all a revenge plot against Earth and the Sanctums, but I don’t think we’ll ever truly know what happened between him and the Ancient One. He used Mordo, and he used us.’’

Tony sighs, and leans against him. He is still on the hot side from napping earlier, and Stephen welcomes the weight against his own. ‘’It doesn’t matter why he did it,’’ Tony says firmly. ‘’He failed, and that’s the end of it. Some mysteries are better left unsolved.’’

It almost is the end of it, at least. Stephen doesn’t bother telling him about the curses again, as Tony falls asleep against him again, still exhausted in the aftermath of the Curse of Cyttorak. His breathing evens out.

There’ll be some nightmares, in the future. Stephen has already woken up a few times because of everything that’s happened, and he’s woken up Tony in kind. But yes, most of their problems will be over. Tony’s curse is lifted and the danger is gone, and Stephen knows that Tony’s going to stay.

Chthon tried, and they resisted him. Galactus is defeated, Chthon is bound, and he will be able to lift the curses soon enough, before they attract any more dangers. Stephen hasn’t felt as comfortable and relieved in a long while. Tony’s face wrinkles and he lets out a sigh, his hand curling around Stephen’s arm as he curls up to him in his dreams.

Stephen smiles, and closes his eyes. He rests his head on Tony’s, smelling the curls, and sleeps.

~*~

It takes six days for them to figure out how to lift the curse, with the help of the manuscript. Minoru and Stephen stand in front of the room, filled with maybe just above thirty men and women. All of them suffer of the same curse. They whisper excitedly – Vision has informed all of them that the answer is here. They can finally go back to their families and friends, and the nervous eagerness is plain on all their faces.

Wong and Tony stand a little way back, just watching. Stephen looks towards Minoru, taking in her rigid stance. ‘’Ready?’’ he asks.

She nods resolutely, and they move their hands up at the same time.

Strictly speaking, they don’t have to be in the same room as the cursed people to lift the curse. They have devised their counter-spell so that it will travel the world and release everyone on Earth, as they were well-aware that they couldn’t find everyone otherwise. It took a few extra days and deliberation, but they are Masters of their Sanctums for a reason. And it is definitely worth the extra work to make sure that _everyone_ is free, not just the cursed people that Vision had found. They came to do the spell in the Compound because they want to be here. They want to see the realization dawn when people are remembered again, and to see if it really works.

The counter-spell is a long one; Stephen has closed his eyes and murmured along as he gestures, feeling the tingling touch of a powerful spell. He and Minoru move in synch, the spell resonating in both of them as it rushes around the room and beyond.

It takes close to fifteen minutes to perform the entire thing, and Stephen feels the exhaustion settle in his entire body when he’s done. He looks to Minoru for a second before turning back to the room. Chaos starts as people start yelling and hugging, crying and laughing at each other – emotional, as they suddenly remember the people they’ve spent all this time with.

Tony, behind Stephen, immediately dives into the crowd as well, his eyes wide as he hugs people. Stephen only watches him – he knows Tony is famous, and thus knows many celebrities as well. Memories of everyone else in the room slowly come back to him – he’d only remembered a few, but now he recognizes every face he sees.

Stephen shakes a few hands from everyone who comes up to him to thank him – actresses and news readers and politicians and scientists, all famous worldwide until no one knew them anymore. Most of them are crying, and often hug him as well. Minoru lets it happen to her, only looking slightly uncomfortable, and Stephen grins at her as people come up to thank them and making phone calls to their loved ones.

Tony comes back to him after a few minutes, inexplicably hugging him tightly. Stephen holds him, taking a few steps back to get them a little privacy. Wong, wordlessly, takes Stephen’s place, granting them a little time.

‘’Thank you,’’ Tony mouths into Stephen’s neck. ‘’I’d completely forgotten, but – thank you. You did it, Stephen. You did it.’’

‘’I had some help, and I didn’t manage to lift yours,’’ Stephen reminds him, but gently kisses the top of Tony’s head. 

Tony hums and draws back a little. ‘’I would’ve gone insane without you,’’ he murmurs. ‘’I remember some of these people – you see that woman in the back? I did a science project with her, years back. Whip-smart and kind, as well. No one deserves this.’’

‘’Chthon used many people, and none of them deserved it,’’ Stephen acknowledges. ‘’Their celebrity made sure that the spell would have to use so much energy to make everyone forget about them, and that’s all there is to it. All of that energy, just to draw Galactus here. Mordo may have fed you a story about punishment, but it was never about righteousness. The whims of an irate demon, that’s all there is to it.’’

‘’This isn’t everyone,’’ Tony notes quietly. ‘’I think there’s more people that aren’t here right now.’’

‘’We’ll find them.’’

Tony is quiet for a moment, and then leans into Stephen again. ‘’I don’t think we’ll find all of them,’’ he says quietly, and watches all the people pass by, celebrating being remembered again. The aching joy in their faces has another side to it; the knowledge of how painful it was not to be remembered at all. ‘’Not alive, at least.’’

Stephen lets out a breath. ‘’Maybe not,’’ he says. ‘’But we saved these people, Tony. Just think about that. These people get to go home and be with their families again. And the others – well, they’ll be remembered, too. We’ll make sure of that.’’

Tony nods against him. ‘’We will,’’ he says, his voice steadier. Stephen just holds him, and together, they watch all the celebrities, once cursed, now free. They did that, at least, and Stephen wouldn’t have managed without Tony. He may have saved Tony, in a way, but Tony has done just as much for him.

And they’ll still have a long while to enjoy that newfound freedom, in the end. They’ve come through the night into the dawn, and Stephen knows that they are all the stronger for having made it together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one more to go - the epilogue :) I'm going to sob, guys. I really am.


	47. Chapter 47

_Six months later_

The leaves are brown and floating towards the ground. Tony sits in Pepper and Rhodey’s living room, watching the orange trees from far above. He likes the view, which is probably why he set up the living room in this area – or well, allowed Pepper to. He doesn’t exactly miss it, though. He has a luxurious apartment in New York for himself, though he barely stays there. He prefers the Sanctum, with Stephen in it.

Stephen is seated beside him now, staring intently at the small bundle in Tony’s arms, as if he still can’t quite believe that something this small exists.

In Tony’s arms, the baby looks back up at Stephen, almost daring him to say something about her size.

‘’I still can’t believe you have a daughter,’’ Tony mutters. Rhodey’s dark brown eyes look up at him from the baby’s face – she doesn’t have many more similarities to either of her parents yet, but Tony’s willing to give her some time to grow into them. She’s only a few days old, after all. ‘’Strike that – I can’t believe you named her after me.’’

‘’Well, it's only her second name,’’ Rhodey says, walking in with two cups of coffee for Tony and Stephen, setting them down before them as Pepper grins at him. She’s sitting beside Tony as well, having a hard time keeping her eyes off her daughter as well. 

‘’Roberta Antonia Rhodes,’’ Stephen repeats, still watching the baby. ‘’Where did you get her first name?’’

‘’James’ mother,’’ Pepper supplies before Rhodey can say. Tony just hums at the baby, slowly rocking her in his arms. She seems unimpressed by Tony’s attempts to handle her, but like she has decided to humour him for now. Okay, so maybe she’s already taking after Pepper in that respect. Tony has been on the receiving end of this look far too often already. 

She isn't that heavy yet, but Tony feels the weight of her nonetheless. Maybe it’s because he has never held that many babies before; much less the baby of his two best friends in the world. Tony is her godfather, and he hopes she’ll be so, so happy. At least she has the best parents he could ever think of, and Tony will strive to be the best godfather, too.

Stephen gets into a conversation with Pepper and Rhodey; Tony doesn’t really pay attention to what they’re saying, still carefully cradling this precious bundle, wrapped up in his arms, completely trusting of him. Roberta yawns, and Tony almost melts at the sight. She purses her lips, after that, and wraps her little hand around Tony’s finger.

‘’Hey there,’’ he whispers to her, so soft that the others don’t overhear him. He thinks Pepper is listening in, though, sitting quietly beside him. ‘’I just want you to know that you can always come to me. You’ve got the best parents in the world, but I know what parents can be like. I only live a little while away, and I’m going to always be there for you. You’re going to be so, so loved, princess.’’

Roberta just goes to sleep, still grasping Tony’s digit. He lets her – she can have as many fingers as she wants. Tony is still staring at her intently when Stephen leans again him, casually dropping a kiss against his cheek and joining him in watching Roberta. ‘’Are they always this small?’’ the sorcerer asks, still a bit dubious.

Pepper laughs. ‘’Yes, they are,’’ she says. ‘’Believe me, it doesn’t seem that small when it has to come _out_.’’

Tony winces at the thought. He can see Rhodey shuddering at the reminder. Hey, they did get a kid out of it. And Tony a goddaughter – tiny human perfection. 

The door falls shut, somewhere. Tony turns, in as far as he can turn with a baby in his arms, as Peter enters, waving at them. ‘’Miss Potts, Colonel! Congratulations on the baby!’’

‘’You invited him?’’ Tony asks them. ‘’Hey, Peter – how did that test go?’’

Pepper shrugs. ‘’You’re not the only one who likes Peter. And he mentioned that he had lunch plans with you today, so I thought he could come with you after. I’d rather have three visitors at once than spread them out all over the day.’’

Peter crouches down in front of Tony, his eyes widening as he looks at Roberta. ‘’Oh wow, she’s tiny,’’ the teenager says, seemingly afraid to touch her. 

‘’I have been told it’s normal,’’ Stephen says dryly.

‘’I always wanted a sibling when I was a kid,’’ Peter says, a bit melancholy. ‘’It would’ve been so much fun to have a little brother or sister to play with. Oh, hey, if she’s a bit older, I’d be happy to babysit for you! I used to do it for our neighbours all the time.’’

‘’Hands off, Parker,’’ Tony teases him. ‘’My goddaughter. I get babysitting rights.’’

‘’You don’t even know how to change a diaper,’’ Stephen unhelpfully reminds him.

Tony sends him a betrayed look. ‘’You’re a sorcerer! Can’t you _magic_ it away?’’

Stephen sighs, shaking his head in desolation. ‘’Lived among sorcerers for over a year and still barely grasps the mechanics of the Mystic Arts.’’

‘’You’re just going to have to learn,’’ Rhodey says in good humour, and takes the baby from Tony. Tony lets her go with a little difficulty. She was warm and pliant in his arms, and he didn’t want to let her go, but her dad can have her for now. ‘’I cleaned your diapers for years, so you can learn to do the same for Roberta.’’

‘’You’re all conspiring against me,’’ Tony complains, but he doesn’t really mind when they all look at him fondly. Peter coos at the baby, and Rhodey’s eyes are soft as he looks at her. Pepper is still sitting, but she is quiet and smiling, as if she can’t quite believe it.

Tony has trouble with it, too. All the people he loves best are in one room, and they have a tiny addition to the family, now. He just listens to the conversation, barely participating as he drinks his coffee and finds his eyes straying back to Roberta every now and then.

It’s been twenty minutes or so when Pepper announces that she and the baby need to go back to bed. She seems exhausted, though her smile radiates joy. Tony hugs her maybe a bit too tightly, but she hugs him back just as forcefully.

‘’Thank you, Tony,’’ she says, kissing his cheek as she pulls back.

‘’I haven’t done anything,’’ he answers in confusion.

She smiles knowingly at him. ‘’That’s what you think.’’

Pepper doesn’t give him a chance to respond as she turns him over to Rhodey. He can’t hug his lifelong friend on account of the baby in his arms, but Tony pats him on the back. Roberta sleeps through his goodbye, but that’s alright. He’ll see plenty of her, in the future. She’s got her whole life ahead, and Tony means to play a frequent part in it.

He can barely wait.

Stephen hugs the new parents as well. In the past few months, he’s come to know Pepper and Rhodey far better, and fortunately for him, they really hit it off. That’s a relief, certainly, as Tony didn’t know beforehand how everyone would feel about each other. Pepper seems to think that Stephen is good for him, though, and Tony can’t help but agree with that assessment.

Stephen creates a portal for them to go through, and Peter barely looks up at the display of magic anymore. He’s come to the Sanctum often to spend time with Tony and Stephen, and he’s familiar with the Mystic Arts by now. Stephen even taught him a few spells, though it’s certainly not Peter’s strong suit. He’s better than Tony, though, who hadn’t managed even the simplest spell, and he’d settled for watching Peter fumble along.

Not that it matters. Tony liked seeing them, and he’s just glad that they’re getting along. Maybe a bit too well, with how often they team up against him. The portal ends up in the hallway, and the dining room isn’t far away from there. Peter knows the way by now, chatting animatedly with Tony about how well he did on his test and about their upcoming trip to MIT. Tony planned it so that he could show Peter around and let the prospects of his future sink in – secretly, he’s already arranged that Peter can definitely go there, but he wants to see what the kid thinks first. If he'll even want to.

There’s already a few Masters sitting there, and they all greet Peter. Everyone knows the over-excited teenager well enough by now, and Peter always makes a point of talking to everyone he knows.

‘’Master Irwin,’’ Tony greets Lydia, smirking as he sits next to her. Stephen shuffles in beside him and Peter joins Master Brown and Wong, opposite them. 

Lydia rolls her eyes at him. She’s been a Master just a little under two months. She’s proven herself worthy of the title, and Tony was there when Stephen gave it to her. ‘’Wanda’s not here today?’’ Stephen asks her. Wanda and Lydia became fast friends, after Wanda turned into Stephen’s personal student.

Lydia shrugs. ‘’She’s spending some time with Vision, I think. By the way, Tony, Bruce Banner left you a message. You should probably call him back.’’

‘’Right, that’ll be about our newest project,’’ Tony says, wringing his hands. He’s doing loads of experiments with Bruce now. They always have fun, and he missed Bruce more than he thought. It’s odd, how numb he was back when he was cursed. It’s as if he only realized how much he’d missed his friends when he got them back. ‘’Peter, you’re going to love this one. We’re going to test –‘’

‘’Tell him later,’’ Wong says. ‘’You’ve bored me with this already when you were in the library yesterday, I don’t want to hear it all again.’’

‘’You were talking about how to _sort books_ ,’’ Tony protests. ‘’You’re an actual sorcerer, and with the way you were going about your sorting methods, you’d think your biggest problem is people not putting the books back in the right place!’’

‘’With you in the library? It is.’’

‘’Stephen doesn’t put them back in the right place!’’

Stephen freezes beside him. ‘’Traitor,’’ he whispers furiously to Tony as Wong turns to him. Tony laughs and squeezes his hand below the table and Wong sets a deadly glare on Stephen.

‘’Stephen Strange –‘’ Wong begins.

‘’Wong’s the one who deleted your Queen playlist,’’ Tony offers before he can get anything else out. He can cause chaos on two sides, and maybe that’ll prevent an age-old argument while also getting him out of trouble.

Wong stills. ‘’Call it even?’’ he asks.

Master Brown shakes her head at them. ‘’Stark, you’re a menace. Now tell me, Peter, how are you doing in school? Last time you visited I heard you were working on a project with that unhelpful girl. How did that end?’’

Tony just grins at Stephen and shuffles closer as he listens to Peter and Master Brown converse. He wouldn’t have believed this, a year earlier. He’d been cursed, then, desperate and lonely. He’d never thought he’d end up dating Stephen Strange and happier than ever. He wouldn’t have believed that he’d be willingly sitting here, having lunch with the Masters of the Sanctum and Peter. He would have laughed in the face of anyone who would have said that he’d just come back from seeing Pepper and Rhodey’s tiny perfect daughter, and he’d never have believed everything they went through.

He’s here, and he’s happy. There’s nothing he could ever want for – not when he has his family by his side, and a job he loves, and friends to call his own. A teenage kid to mentor that he adores, and now a goddaughter to spoil rotten.

Being cursed is something he wouldn’t ask for again. It was terrible and lonely and he hated every minute of it, but – well, it’s just a sign that sometimes good things come from surviving others. He became Iron Man so many years ago because he’d survived a cave.

Now he’s found a home and a life he’s eager to see more of, and a man by his side to share it with. And it wouldn’t have happened if he’d never been cursed. He’d only know Stephen as the sorcerer who occasionally helped them out, and he wouldn’t have known the quiet sarcasm that Stephen employs. He wouldn’t know his scarred hands and the story behind them. He wouldn’t know that Stephen cuddles at night or the insecurities that he sometimes has.

Most importantly, he wouldn’t know how well they’d work together. He wouldn’t have known the sheer potential, and that’s a scary thought, if he lingers on it too long.

So he doesn’t. He simply leans again Stephen, caressing his hand with his own thumb, and knows that they ended up right where they were meant to be.

~*~

‘’Tony,’’ Stephen says late at night, as they’re already in bed. Tony wasn’t exactly sleeping, but he was close it, and so he starts a bit at Stephen’s voice. ‘’Do you sometimes think back on when you first came here?’’

Tony turns around and makes a few grabs in the dark until he’s holding Stephen. The sorcerer allows himself to be pulled towards him with a single huff, but he easily shifts so that their legs entangle and his lips rest against Tony’s cheek.

‘’Not a lot,’’ Tony says easily. ‘’Your manners were really appalling, though. Why?’’

Stephen is silent for a little while. Tony doesn’t mind, as he snuggles into Stephen’s heat, while the sorcerer thinks on what to say. ‘’It was so odd. I didn’t remember you at all, and then when we figured out the counter-curse, I started getting these memories again. All I thought was that yes, of course I knew you. And then I thought – but if I forgot about you now, and regained my memories later. I didn’t know you at all – this isn’t what I wanted to say. It’s coming out all wrong.’’

Tony quietly laughs and shifts so he can kiss Stephen. ‘’I know what you’re trying to say,’’ he assures him, in the dark of night. ‘’It’d be different. We were barely acquaintances, back then. And now, I love you.’’

‘’I love you, too,’’ Stephen says, his voice rumbling low in the silence. This time, he doesn’t have to think at all about what to say. Tony smiles.

‘’So what were you thinking?’’ he asks, because he knows there’s more.

‘’I was thinking that I never want you to leave,’’ Stephen says honestly, and presses Tony tightly against him. ‘’When we were with Rhodes and Pepper today, I just thought – you were holding this tiny baby, and you looked so happy. And I already knew that I never wanted to let you go, of course, but – do you ever think about marrying?’’

Tony is a bit thrown off by the question. He pushes Stephen away a bit, just so he can look at his face. It’s still hard to see, in the dark, but there’s the general shape of Stephen’s face, and the glint of his eyes is still visible. They’ve never talked about marriage, before, and Tony mulls over it for a few seconds. 

‘’Not consciously,’’ he says. ‘’I mean, when I was with Pepper – but you know –‘’

‘’Well, I was hoping you wouldn’t marry Pepper,’’ Stephen says wryly.

‘’Right,’’ Tony says, ‘’but you know, as a general thing, I always thought I’d get married, some day. Never thought it’d be with a sorcerer, mind, though of course I’ve never been the type for the white picket fence – but yeah. Is this you asking?’’

‘’I – not intentionally, at least?’’

‘’Alright. Well, hypothetically, if you were asking, I’m pretty sure I’d say yes. I wasn’t really planning on leaving. And I’m in love with you, that helps as well. I didn’t know marriage was something you’d want, though. You have to admit it’s kind of out of the blue.’’

Stephen is silent for a few seconds. Tony waits for him in the dark. ‘’It’s not something I thought about with anyone. I’d always assumed I’d end up alone, somehow. And I really don’t mean to, now you’re here. So – yes, if it’s with you. Then it’s something I’d want.’’

Tony rolls around until he’s in the right position to kiss Stephen soundly. Stephen seems to appreciate the sudden spin their conversation has taken, and makes sure Tony stays there, his warm hands holding him steady. 

‘’By the way,’’ Tony says in between kisses, coming up for air for each word, ‘’this is – the most – unromantic – hypothetical – proposal ever. Just – so you – are aware. Lousy – proposal.’’

‘’I won’t do it like this, then,’’ Stephen says, but at least he makes up for his lack of romance by kissing Tony back.

~*~

The Cloak and Dum-E follow each other around like two unsupervised toddlers. Tony’s been watching them chase each other around the library for a few minutes now, and he’s pretty sure they’re playing tag. Dum-E is far too clumsy, so he’s mostly chasing the Cloak who flies out of his reach. Dum-E chirps loudly every time the Cloak does so, though, and it always floats downward slowly, ready to be tagged, none too gently, by Dum-E’s claw.

‘’What are they doing?’’ a feminine voice that Tony knows all too well comes from behind him.

‘’Hey, Minoru, Master Wright,’’ he greets the two newcomers that are dubiously looking at the playing robot and magic relic.

‘’Is that the Cloak of Levitation?’’ Master Wright asks, and Tony’s not sure if he sounds more upset or intrigued.

He shrugs. ‘’Yep. They’re playing tag, I think. They have changed some of the rules, though. Technically, they’re not even breaking Wong’s rules of no running in the library. He’s going to put a stop to it as soon as he finds out, so let them have some fun for now.’’

‘’I wouldn’t dare stopping that,’’ Minoru says, and the glint in her eyes betrays her amusement. ‘’Is Master Chen around? I have a matter to discuss with him.’’

Tony hums. ‘’He’s teaching, I think. You can see if he’s in the gardens. Hey, you don’t need Stephen, right? I’ve kind of borrowed him for tonight.’’

Minoru shakes her head. ‘’You have him all to yourself, Mr Stark. What do you have planned?’’

Tony smirks. ‘’Not much,’’ he says. ‘’Just a promise I still haven’t gotten around to fulfilling.’’

Minoru rolls her eyes at him. She knows him well enough to be aware that pressing won’t help; Tony remembers a certain conversation with Stephen all too well, and he wants it to be just theirs. She accepts his answer, and with a quick farewell and good luck, she’s on her way to the gardens. Tony narrows his eyes as he sees her take Wright’s hand as they disappear.

A crash distracts him, and Tony has just helped up Dum-E again when Stephen suddenly has sneaked up on him, embracing him from behind. ‘’Good evening,’’ he breathes into Tony’s ear, hot air tickling slightly. Tony turns around, brightening at the sight of Stephen.

‘’C’mon, get your coat,’’ he says eagerly, pressing a quick kiss to Stephen’s lips before squirming out of his hold again. ‘’You’re late already, you’re messing up my plans.’’

‘’Plans?’’ Stephen repeats. ‘’I wasn’t aware we had plans. Tony?’’

It’s hard not to revel at the confusion in Stephen’s voice, but Tony just shouts at the Cloak and Dum-E to be nice to Wong before tugging at Stephen’s sleeve and dragging him along. Of course, it wouldn’t work if Stephen didn’t just stumble after him, but Tony already counted on him doing that. Wong’s standing at the far end of the hall, slightly annoyed.

‘’You’re late,’’ he says, crossing his arms. 

‘’Not my fault,’’ Tony tells him, and gets a coat from the few that hang there. It’s greyish and tall, fitting perfectly on Stephen when he helps his sorcerer in it. ‘’Wong, portal. Please?’’

‘’Have fun,’’ Wong says.

‘’Have fun _where_?’’ Stephen asks, looking at the coat helplessly.

Tony ignores him as a portal opens before them. Stephen follows easily enough, stepping into the darkness in the middle of the park. He can feel that Stephen is about to ask more questions, so he takes his hand and moves him. ‘’Lights,’’ he says, and FRIDAY complies immediately, installed as she is in the one of lights that suddenly turn on.

The thruster technology is useful for more than just his suit. Dozens of orange lights float in the air like magic, giving off a romantically soft glow, just illuminating enough to see each other and the environment. The technology is almost inaudible, and Tony feels oddly proud of how cheesy the entire thing looks. Exactly what he wanted.

‘’Where are we?’’ Stephen asks, still perpetually in confusion. ‘’Is this Central Park?’’

Tony spots the abandoned ice vendor quickly enough. ‘’Yep,’’ he says cheerfully. ‘’C’mon, I got something for you.’’

Stephen follows him as Tony walks over. ‘’Tony, can’t you just tell me what we’re doing here?’’

‘’Alright,’’ Tony says, and leans over, taking an ice cream cone. ‘’Okay, I’ve never scooped ice cream before – is there a method for this? Look, I’ve got pistachio here, that was your favourite, right. I’m pretty sure that was pistachio, I tried to remember everything.’’

‘’Here, let me do that,’’ Stephen says, sighing as he goes along with it. ‘’It’s pistachio. How did you know? What did you plan?’’

‘’Right. So, do you remember that time we were telling each about first dates? And then I realized, we’ve been dating quite a while now, but I never did what I told you back then. Honestly, there wasn’t a boring conference today that I could go to and impress people with my wonderful sorcerer partner, and I didn’t actually feel like going to a movie, so I cut to the final part. I promised you ice cream, and I promised you dancing in the park. That’s what I said it would be like – me taking you out on a date. So here we are, and if you couldn’t tell, yet, this is the ice cream part of the date.’’

Stephen lights up as he talks. ‘’I completely forgot about that,’’ he says. ‘’You cheated. You said I was allowed to take you on the first date.’’

Tony shrugs. ‘’You had months to do that. It's not my fault you forgot. I’m first, deal with it. Here, eat your ice cream. I had it imported all the way from Italy. It’s supposed to be the best ice cream in Europe.’’

Stephen laughs, but dutifully licks at it. ‘’And then put it into a regular ice cream vendor?’’

‘’Seems more authentic that way, doesn’t it?’’ Tony scoops himself some ice cream into a cone as well – going for the more regular combination of chocolate and strawberry – and hums. Stephen shakes his head at him and kisses him, sweetly, holding his ice cream with one hand and putting his other hand on Tony’s jaw as he guides their lips together.

‘’Thank you, Tony,’’ he says softly.

Tony makes a face. ‘’Pistachio is the worst flavour in the world, and you’re never allowed to complain about me tasting of donut again.’’

‘’Alright, I won’t kiss you again while I’m eating this,’’ Stephen says, leaning away with a mischievous grin on his face, and he licks at his scoop again. ‘’I should warn you that I’m going to be eating this for a while. I’m notoriously slow when I’m eating ice cream.’’

Tony watches him for a few seconds, pained at the thought of not getting to kiss him while he’s so obviously teasing him.

‘’Alright, I give up,’’ Tony says, and drags Stephen close again. ‘’I can handle the pistachio. Maybe.’’

Stephen hums against him. His lips are cold and sweet, and maybe it’s not so bad. Tony always enjoys kissing Stephen far too much to mind the odd flavour. ‘’Magnanimous of you,’’ he breathes.

They spend far too long clinging to each other, and when they break apart, most of the ice cream has melted already. Stephen just gets them another few scoops, and they lean against each other in the cold autumn night, watching the soft light create shadows among the leafless trees.

It takes them a few minutes to finish their ice cream again. Tony is done first, and he just watches Stephen lick at his own in content. They stand in silence, leaning half against the vendor and half against each other. Stephen shivers a bit as he finishes, his coat not thick enough to keep him warm.

Tony just takes his hands – also icily cold – and moves. ‘’I also promised you a dance,’’ he says.

Stephen huffs out a laugh, but presses Tony against him and slowly starts swaying already. ‘’Music,’’ Tony says in the open, and FRIDAY has no difficulty picking up on it.

 _This thing called love, I just can’t handle it_.

Stephen closes his eyes for a second and puts his head down on Tony’s shoulder as the Queen song starts playing. ‘’You’re one walking cliché,’’ Stephen says, but they swing to the upbeat song easily.

‘’I’m just an eccentric billionaire,’’ Tony says. ‘’If I want to rent off a part of Central Park in the middle of the evening and play Queen here, they’re going to let me. And I do want that.’’

Finally, he’s getting to do what he said he would do, back when he’d still been cursed. He’s here, in the middle of Central Park, slowly dancing with Stephen while the sorcerer whispers the words to the song in his ear.

They’ve survived demons and curses just so they’d end up here.

‘’I do love you, you know,’’ he says. It’s not enough – it’s not nearly enough to express what he really feels, when he sees Stephen. It’s a fond tingling, and the realization that there’s not a single place he’d rather be or a person he wants to hang around more than with Stephen. 

Here he is, still tasting Stephen’s ridiculous pistachio ice cream on his lips, and even thinking of doing anything else is absurdity.

‘’Always,’’ Stephen murmurs, and it’s a promise.

The orange leaves crunch under their shoes. He can still faintly hear the New York traffic over the music. It’s by no means perfect, actually, but Tony thinks he pulled of this date pretty well despite the dancing not going very smoothly. Stephen’s eyes are crinkling, and they’re laughing as they stumble over each other’s feet and continuously fall into each other’s arms.

It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty much all Tony ever wanted. It’s not how he thought he’d get there, but as Stephen closes the distance between them again, none of that matters.

He’s dancing in the autumn night, with Stephen in his arms, and there’s not a thing in the world that could ever make him forget about this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And... that's it.
> 
> A final shoutout to Mara for being my rock while writing this. Without her, I would still be daydreaming about this fic without writing a single word. 
> 
> I want to thank all of you so much for reading! I had so much fun writing this, and even more fun posting, with all of the kind comments I received! All I can say is thank you, I never expected that so many of you would enjoy my writing.
> 
> A lot more of Ironstrange is coming, at least, so this won't be the last you see of me! Hopefully, it's not the last I will see of you guys either :)


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